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Liberty's Edge

Excellent bloggage and sounds like a great after-con! I've got to negotiate a better "hall pass" from the wife for next year that will allow me to stay through Sunday. :)

Grand Lodge 5/5

Re-posted from my forum:

Friday.
Well we hit the ground running...

The Venture-Captain dinner was incredible! Hyrum Savage and Mark Moreland shared with us the plans for Society play over the next coming year. We got to put our eyes (and hands) on a prototype of the new Campaign book covering the Pathfinder Society (both from a perspective of Golarion canon and Organized play). Erik Mona and Jason Bulmahn joined the meal and the festivities, I can't really mention the other stuff (yet)...

There are a tone of great seminars happening this weekend! We will make sure that they get recorded for your listening pleasure.

More to come...

Friday.
This morning we saw a mass exodus of Pathfinders all up n down the halls of PaizoCon, working ever forward to the registration desk for their badges and SWEET schwag bag o' goodness!

I just passed Ed Greenwood just outside the lounge in the hotel...
He had a captive audience of a half dozen or so, hanging on the his every word.
Ed is spinning a wonderful Forgotten Realms tale, he looks up at me as I walk by and winks.
D&D Royalty, plain and simple. I'm playing in Ed's game on Saturday afternoon.

We just wrapped up the recording of the first seminar of the Con.
Jason, James and Steven did an hour on creating game rules that work.
Good set. Good information, some funny moments from JB and a couple of Ultimate Combat spoilers! You're gonna love it!

Friday.
Evening check in...

The Society's Grand Melee kicks off in a few minutes...

We wrapped up a seminar on Writing for the Pathfinder Society.
Speakers were Moreland, Savage, Bauer and Carey.

Good stuff. I'll let the recording speak for itself...

A little later tonight, we're recording The Secrets of TSR featuring an all star cast of former employees!

Sat.
Today was an amazing day of activity!

Three major seminars and a five chapter read from Dave Gross recorded today.

An epic 2ndEd game run by Ed Greenwood as my Dungeon Master. I recorded it too.

The Banquet is this evening and we're getting gussied-up for the affair.

Sat.
Banquet had loads of good stuff:
Jason shared an extensive look into the Beginners Box.
He also gave an extensive look tour of Ultimate Combat to be released at GenCon 2011.

James announced the AP to follow Jade Regent to be called Skull and Bones aka Pirate Maker. Erik announced that the next Core rulebook to be released in 2012 to be Ultimate Races. We finished the night with the first look at the entire Wizkids/Paizo Miniature collaboration. Four iconics (Cleric, Thief, Fighter, Wizard) painted for $12. They look amazing.

By Sunday I was busy trying to get loads of things done and people met, didn't end up writing after that.

As a foot note, I'll be producing many of the seminars from this weekend in an upcoming PaizoCon Special.

http://www.pathfinder-podcast.com


Painlord wrote:

If anyone was at the winning table, would you please post the names of the heroes so we can properly 'honor' them, as Pathfinder tradition would dictate?

::Painlord hands out tomatoes and rotten fruit.::

(Little known fact: according to Year of the ShadowLodge scenario, throwing things (like rotten fruit) is the sign of honor and merriment within the confines of the Irorium. It's tradition. True story.)

-Pain

Thanks, I think... o_O

My Tillan, a monk, and Radon's Trig, a summoner, were amongst the champions. Unfortunately, I don't remember the PC or board names of the others. We had some lucky synergy and had a great time.


Well i hope you can make it to Indy for GENCON i will be here rady to play. Long live Mordzuk

Grand Lodge 5/5 Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic

PaizoCon 2011 was amazing! I'm still a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people I met (or is it the jetlag? ;-) ).

I'm not even going to try to name you all, you know who you are!

Thanks!

Sovereign Court 1/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

The final round of Kyle Baird's table at the Grand Melee. Go Team Taldor!

5/5

Elora wrote:
The final round of Kyle Baird's table at the Grand Melee. Go Team Taldor!

I disapprove of this message.

Spoiler:
EXPLOSIVE RUNES!

1/5 **

Highlights:
• Sitting at a table run by Doug Doug. It’s been a while since I’ve been this impressed with a GM. Hats off to you, sir!
• Being on the winning team during the grand melee. I do think that as a tier 1-2 table we had the easiest time of things, but we were still really surprised and excited to find that we had one. Some of the boons are sick!
• Meeting some great people and putting faces to names. Painlord, Wolfthulu, Sebsastian’s SD crew (though Sebastian himself was afraid to face me), etc.
• Venue. I know many people don't care for this hotel, but as someone who often stays in expensive hotels for work, I'll take the reasonably priced option, thanks. Though I suspect PaizoCon has now outgrown this property...

Lowlights:
• The banquet. The audio didn’t work in our corner – I ended up in the back of the room. The screen was also not visible from my position. Finally, the entry line was poorly managed, resulting in one of two lines arbitrarily going in completely before the other.
• PFS mustering. Communication was largely non existent. More than once our table had to go looking for someone to muster us after the slot started. Please put more people on this next year.
• Some surly folks. Mr. iPad 2 at Cosmo's banquet table, I’m looking at you.

Overall a very enjoyable con that was a little lacking in the organization department.

4/5 *

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber
bugleyman wrote:
Mr. iPad 2 at Cosmo's banquet table, I’m looking at you.

LOL, Cyn and I know just what you mean. :-)

1/5

Ok here goes. I posted a short post earlier, but here goes. I had an awesome time meeting a ton of people. Like Auke I won't even try to name them all.

My con experience started before the con. On Thursday we (my boyfriend and I) met Jason Nelson and Neil Spicer to hang out at the Science Center, from there we ate our way through Pike's Place Market for lunch, after that we caught a session of the Paladin in Hell game (where I got to play), after that was of course the Meet and Eat. This is everything I thought it was going to be, we hung out in Zuxius' room where I quite liked the rootbeer his son brewed (I'm still pushing for Cream Soda next year).

Friday got started a little late due to the game we ended up playing. Our original plans got altered so instead of catching a few seminars we ended up in a pick up game of PFS where a GM was graciously accquired for us by the mustering squad. This game allowed us to play characters who have been shelved the better part of a year along with one of our other local players William aka Talbanus with his character Tagaron. Our lottery event took an interesting turn where Khellendros460 (my boyfriend) gave his seat to Michael Griffin-Wade aka Herald so he and his wife could play together, khellendros460 ended up at the Grand melee with William while I played in the lottery event. He said it was great, fun, and a bit daunting toward the end and JP did a great GM job. Once again we found ourselves at the Paladin in Hell game. (I want to give a shout out to Jason Nelson for introducing us to this game and the peeps running it. If not for him we wouldn't have come across it). That game had an open door policy and several people wandered in and out so we got to meet a lot of people that way.

Saturday started out early with a lotter game ran by Kelly Grotek we had a great group of people and the end was of epic proportions. We were able to once yet again pick up Paladin in Hell. Those guys are extremely generous and all around great. The banquet held our time in the evening. There have been plenty of posts about that. Afterward we ended up in Hell again, and just generally hanging out after the game. I will say Kyle Baird was in this game slot and told us about a level 7-11 PFS game was happening first thing Sunday morning if enough people showed up. We decided to go too, just to make sure it was played.

Sunday morning was really rough as we had not had very much sleep all weekend. I'm not sure who had it worse us (sleed deprived) or Kyle (who imbibed on Sat night). Talbanus showed up again with Tagaron. Needless to say we had enough people to make this happen. We had a good mix of characters, a good GM, and an all around good time with Wrath of the Accursed. We managed to get into Painlord's after con game too. This shows a lot of promise and I can't wait to find out more.

Anyway that about wraps up our con and I can't wait for next year. Of course staying at the con hotel this go 'round!

Thanks to all of the people I met!

5/5

LtlBtyRam wrote:
or Kyle (who imbibed on Sat night).

Funny, I don't remember imbibing... ;-)

Shadow Lodge

I want to reiterate how awesome this PaizoCon was. Though Thursday for me only involved the VC dinner (I had class in the middle of the day, which kept me from getting to the fun stuff), Friday really kicked things off for me. Though my game at noon wound up not happening due to a lack of players, I wound up helping out a bit at the HQ table before going to meet up with folks at the restaurant downstairs. Then the Grand Melee kicked off, and I honestly had a blast running it for a great table!

Saturday started rather early for me, and I got into a game as a player (for the first time in months) in The Mantis' Prey, a neat little adventure that has to be one of my favorites of this season. Though I had to dash after that due to a little bank issue that needed fixing (and it was, thank god), I got back just in time to run The Heresy of Man Part III.

As always, the banquet was great. I wound up sitting at James Sutter's table, and as a writer myself I had a great time talking to him. After the banquet, I even ran into LtlBtyRam and Khellandros in the restaurant and got to catch up with them a bit. I have to say, I'm impressed with how they've kept the Oly group running strong after I moved up to Seattle, an I look forward to playing (or running!) with them again sometime soon.

Sunday, of course, had another early morning game for me, The Sarkorian Prophecy, where my intrepid Hellknight nearly died three times in a tier that was far too much for him (I admittedly played up, the lone 7 at a table of higher-leveled characters). Still, I had a great time, and once I was done I opted to head home for a long-needed nap.

I think one of my favorite things of the con this year was seeing Azmyth's amazing coins that he made for the event. Though I wanted to snag one for myself, I never really got a chance to ask, as aside from the VC dinner I didn't really see much of him. Although...if you have any extras, I'd certainly love to get one :)

Shadow Lodge 5/5

Dane Pitchford wrote:
I think one of my favorite things of the con this year was seeing Azmyth's amazing coins that he made for the event. Though I wanted to snag one for myself, I never really got a chance to ask, as aside from the VC dinner I didn't really see much of him. Although...if you have any extras, I'd certainly love to get one :)

Those coins were spectacular. I too had a fantastic PaizoCon. I took tremendous enjoyment out of actually getting to meet some of you face-to-face. Forms are so beige, so getting to put the face with the poster really helped me get to know a lot of you better. I hope to see you all again either at Gen Con or next year.

Thursday I was able to play in a game of "We Be Goblins" in preparation for this weekend's upcoming Free RPG Day. The module is already a blast, and getting to play with fellow VCs Auke, Eric, and JP made it even better. If you get a chance to play it, make sure you throw tactics and gameism to the wind and just go with the flow, you'll be rewarded for your roleplaying efforts.

Next was the VC dinner, where Mark did a fantastic job giving us the head's up to what's going down (and gave us a special sneak-preview for a really fun looking product). Getting to chat with the VCs and hear about their local victories as well as challenges was a really great experience for a fairly new VC such as myself. That and the food, which was really quite good.

Friday morning I got up bright and early to wait in the line and had a chance to get to know a couple more gamers I don't normally hang out with. After that was a game of Assault on Absalom, the new Pathfinder Quest where I was able to spend some quality time in a pit with Kyle Baird (who was not in the pit) watching the action from below. After that was my first scheduled event to GM, The Mantis's Prey in which nobody showed up. All was not lost though; Hyrum handed me Shadow's Last Stand Part I and said "run with it", which I did, hopefully to a level which made the players happy. Interestingly, I got to meet one of my local gamers in that session which I had not met yet, hopefully it'll help me bring in a few more south of the river into the bigger PFS community of the Twin Cities.

Friday evening though was the Grand Melee, a chance for me to murder PCs for fun and profit. Unfortunately, this was a little more true than I actually desire as four of my six players watched their characters get eaten alive, one by a critical hit from a ronin's katana, one from druid's fire, and the last two from a pair of mated white dragons turning them into ice cubes. The two level two's survived though, and went off with a pretty hefty set of boons. It was a tough mod to run and survive, and I hope nobody left with any sour taste in their mouths.

Saturday morning was the game of doom starring a set of VCs (with Painlord and Koelmanshow) taking down Dragnmoon. It was a ton of fun getting to play with Kyle (who's French Gnome is fantastic). In fact, we had an Indian, African, and Frenchie accent all at the same table - it was enough to get Dragnmoon speaking in an accent eventually. I did get one-shot-killed, but by the grace of Kyle and a 20 roll on my flashy d20, I survived what could have been Ethan's innards spread across Geb. I also was able to continue my command undead streak where every huge undead I've met has become my puppet.

Saturday afternoon I was able to run The Mantis's Prey for a group of kids who had participated in the Burnt Offerings play out of Portland as well as their director. The reveal was described as "goosebumpy" by one of the players, which I absolutely agreed with. By then it was time for the Banquet in which my table did embarrassingly bad (although we did get the answers to a number of the really esoteric questions). That evening I had a chance to have a great conversation with Erik Monda and then got to hang out with a number of other great board personalities including 0gre, Painlord, Azmuth, and others.

Sunday was bittersweet. I had another great game, getting to play through The Dalsine Affair with Alex (the author) as the GM. It's great getting to see how a writer's vision gets translated into an actual product. Even with the player death I thought it was a ton of fun. After that though meant packing up, saying goodbyes, and heading out to the airport where I finally got to touch base with one of the local Minneapolis/St. Paul store personalities on the plane.

Overall the weekend was a blast and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I had the opportunity to meet new friends, solidify other friendships, get to know the Paizo staff I work with regularly, and meet a few new players and personalities local to my area. I can't wait to do it again.

Sovereign Court 3/5

Feral wrote:

Highlights of the module (granted the whole thing was great):

1. Painlord and 0gre trying desperately to keep myself and Matt from splitting the party.

2. Brom using his unorthodox perform skill to solve a puzzle.

Better Brom use his unorthodox skills over my utilizing that crude "talent" the half-orc hussy suggested.

-Gabrielle

3/5

Elora wrote:

Grand Melee. Played the 8-9 level table run by Kyle Baird. We all fought for the glory of Taldor, and much glory did we bring! Not quite enough to take the field (by 14 points), but it was an excellent showing and a great time. The cleric made the ultimate sacrifice (buh-bye 10 points) and Lady Scatha was taken down to -20 hit points...yep, that's not a typo. Fortunately she didn't quite cross over thanks to the short walking spiked armor that I'm told housed a gnome (and judging by the purple hair wildly poking out the top, I'm inclined to believe this story).

Amazing. Boons.

Enjoyed the bubbly courtesy of Alex aka Branding Opportunity.

Time to rest up for The Midnight Mauler and You Only Die Twice! :)

Forming Team Taldor and emerging victorious was the thrill of the con. Most of us played up from 7th level to Tier 8-9 for it, making it that much more difficult. I'm really glad I was allowed to tag in Gerard to provide some much-needed bardic support, as well as a crazy amount of full-attacks and crits.

More details are here.

The five-combat format with escalating encounter difficulty went really well. I'm really glad we all were able to use our talents, hold our ground, and work together to outlast the monsters. The dragons were a bit touch and go; I figured that if we just held on long enough and scored enough full-attacks, we'd take them. The massive Intimidate check really helped us in doing that.

Some memorable parts:

-Gerard blowing his once/day Take-20 to confirm that we were fighting a Astral Deva. Except it wasn't.
-Brom making the dragon Frightened.
-How awesome Lady Scatha's Step Up ended up being.
-Shala, from the center square, calling out the second dragon, which promptly full-attacked her to the point where it was only an immediate-action Lay on Hands which kept her up.
-"You have offended my ancestors..." As well as Ginsu's tricks with burying his foes in his reach. And the Enlarge potion for being able to threaten both dragons at once.
-The grand discovery mid-Melee that Shala was actually a girl gnome.
-"What do you mean, we don't get day job rolls? I was using Perform(oratory) for the entire thing!!!"

-Matt

Liberty's Edge 5/5 **

Mattastrophic wrote:

-"What do you mean, we don't get day job rolls? I was using Perform(oratory) for the entire thing!!!"

Hyrum's tyranny knows no bounds.

My barbarian took Skill Focus (Perform). Skill Focus! =(

3/5

Feral wrote:
Mattastrophic admits defeat as my Jenksism proves the superior philosophy during Web of Corruption.

*clenches fist* "Jenks..."

The dueling philosophies of Jenksism vs. Mattastrophism were debated over the course of PaizoCon, and during Shadow's Last Stand, some normally-cast-aside bardic abilities came up. Oh, and I found myself wishing I had some Sovereign Glue.

I maintain that the module just was not prepared for Countersong, hehehe...

Painlord: I've been doing some thinking on the whole topic, and I'm kicking around resurrecting your thread with some detailed analysis. I've played a lot more PFS since that thread, and I've come to some realizations like:

-If you only have, say, twenty-five modules till retirement, and you don't think you'll use a given wand more than twice per scenario, then that wand really isn't a consumable at that point.
-Spending PA on consumables does not hinder your ability to purchase the magic items that a PC really should be going for.
-Slow-track leveling changes things, though. Under half gold-rewards, half Prestige awards, and twice the scenarios played, consumables are virtually twice as expensive, in terms of their demand on wealth.

Anyways, the Jenksism vs. Mattastrophism debate was a very entertaining topic to continue bringing up at our tables.

-Matt

The Exchange 3/5

Mattastrophic wrote:
Anyways, the Jenksism vs. Mattastrophism debate was a very entertaining topic to continue bringing up at our tables.

Damn. Are we actually labeling philosophies for PFS strategies?

Oh. Yeah. We. Are.

I think my 'half-orc hussy' demonstrated the power of Jenksism with the potion of fly in the Mantis Prey scenario as well.

Then again, as I stated above, a Scroll of Breath of Life (consumables FTW!) kept me alive when I was playing up in You Only Die Twice.

Your mileage may vary...and may vary from character to character. No one says you have to do it one way every time. Some of my characters are prepared to live and survive anything (usually more lawful and conscientious) while others have a more "whatever happens, happens" worldview.

However, if you want to live and succeed more than most people, being able to nail the expectations on my post will enable you to do that.

-Pain

The Exchange 3/5

True Story from PaizoCon:

Feral and I were going to Whole Foods with 3 PaizoCon attendees that I've never met before. They were introduced to me as Alex, Matt, and Todd from Oregon.

We chat for a while about this and that and eventually Matt and I have a really nice and fun discussion about the good ol' LG days and bond commonly over our love of the Geoff storyline and the power those story lines had over the players.

It was a good discussion...this gamer, Matt, was a really cool guy and smart too (he agreed with almost everything I said!).

So I figured I had a new acquaintance from Oregon. It was only later that I learnt that this friendly, fun "Matt" person was the evil Mattostrophic, with whom I had shared a fun discussion on the Painlord's Expectations thread a while back.

Gah! He tricked me by being himself!

Luckily, Matt rocks and we continued to have fun and interesting debates/discussions during the Mantis Prey scenario.

Well met, Matt.

-Pain

3/5

Painlord wrote:

Damn. Are we actually labeling philosophies for PFS strategies?

Oh. Yeah. We. Are.

I had a great laugh when Feral asked our Saturday afternoon table whether each them were a Jenksist. The philosophy duel was on at PaizoCon.

I'm kicking around a long response to resurrect your Jenksism thread. Feral suggested I should write it like an economics textbook, complete with pretty graphs.

Now that I think about it... there is one pretty graph I've thought of which might not be a bad idea...

Anyways, well met, Pain.

-Matt

Liberty's Edge 5/5 **

The con was a great example as to how the internet often gives you the worst view of a person (a view that is not even close to the full picture). Based on his posts on these forums I always thought Matt was nothing but a shameless dirty min/maxer. It turns out he is a shameless dirty min/maxer but he is also a genuinely cool guy and I enjoyed spending the weekend with him, Alex, and the others.

-Nick (that elitist jerk that refuses to play with magi)

The Exchange 3/5

Feral wrote:

The con was a great example as to how the internet often gives you the worst view of a person. Based on his posts on these forums I always thought Matt was nothing but a shameless dirty min/maxer. It turns out he is a shameless dirty min/maxer but he is also a genuinely cool guy and I enjoyed spending the weekend with him, Alex, and the others.

-Nick (that elitist jerk that refuses to play with magi)

LOL.

Feral, FTW.

Alex, aka BrandingOpportunity, was awesome as well. I wish I had a chance to get into a game with him. I admire his work on the Pathfinder wiki.

-Pain

3/5

Feral wrote:

It turns out he is a shameless dirty min/maxer but he is also a genuinely cool guy and I enjoyed spending the weekend with him, Alex, and the others.

-Nick (that elitist jerk that refuses to play with magi)

Guilty as charged. All three of my PFS PCs have a 7 in one stat, Improved Initiative, a Cracked Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone, Reactionary, and Heirloom Weapon.

At the same time though... I really do believe that Reactionary should be errata-ed to not stack with Improved Initiative, and I really do believe that Heirloom Weapon needs to be errata-ed to explicitly say that it does not meet the prerequisites for feats like Weapon Focus, and that the +1 trait bonus to attacks needs to go away. I literally had Gerard spend a feat at 9th to pick up Additional Traits to give him Heirloom Weapon for that +1; it's that frickin' strong.

So, Nick, I'm thinking Gabrielle should take a level of Magus to make up for her abysmally low Will save, since, you know, she's got 7 Wisdom. Which spells should I have her take?

hehehe,
-Matt

Liberty's Edge 5/5 **

Mattastrophic wrote:

So, Nick, I'm thinking Gabrielle should take a level of Magus to make up for her abysmally low Will save, since, you know, she's got 7 Wisdom. Which spells should I have her take?

hehehe,
-Matt

Hold on, I need to go take my blood pressure meds.

Edit:

Oh, yeah. Harpies are dumb.

The Exchange 1/5

Steve Miller wrote:
Most challenging test of my patience yet.

Parties involved did apologize. At least I did. Chad really did do a great job despite our effortts. At least I had a partial excuse my dudes charisma was 7. ;-). I think he's going to be nervous during high winds just because...

Thanks Chad you've given my character a psychosis.
Lerch

Grand Lodge 5/5

For the record:

Painlord was responsible for the idea and creation of the KublaCon 25 and later the PaizoCon 15. As the numbers implies, there were only 25/15 made of each run before the molds was destroyed.

Yes, he's that hard-core.

As VC for the Region in which Painlord runs amuck,
I take neither credit and responsibility for (most of) his actions.

In reality, my left hand would have nothing to clap if there was no Painlord. He (often) makes me look good and always benefits this community by being part of it.

Sczarni 2/5 RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

Steve Miller wrote:
Chad did an excellent job GMing our interesting mix of players. Almost had a tpk a few times. Oh, and this great job he did, he did with only 40 mins prep time.

I was really going through a tough time that day. I was drained of all energy from lack of sleep, and a bit emotionally down from no one showing up for a game I wanted to run. That game was what I really needed at the time.

That was a really fun game, and I enjoyed the enthusiasm and energy the GM brought to the table. I am pretty sure he improved some of the introduction, but I loved the foaming at the mouth rant that was the venture caption giving us the mission details.

I did enjoy the first fight, even if everyone almost died. Jumping from one level to the next, and setting up the rope was a fun thematic moment for me. Watching someone roll a 1 on the climb check to use the rope I just set up was both scary (at the time,) and humorous (after the fact.)

Good job.

Liberty's Edge 2/5 *

Is that a common occurance ? People not turning up for a game they had signed up for at large cons?

4/5 ****

You do realized the post you responded to was from June of 2011, right?

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