Flaxseed Lodge (PFS1)

Game Master Redelia

Personally, I just smashed a shedload of the Pathfinder Tales novels, and read up on different areas sort of as I played through them.

Trying to digest a whole encyclopaedia sucks.

If there's a certain theme you like, go look that up.

A theme map is located HERE

Oh. My. God. I laughed Wayyyyyy too hard at this!!! Thank you, I needed that tonight!!!

And yes, digesting an encyclopaedia does suck. I had not considered the Pathfinder Tales as an accurate source; I will have to look into that.

The Pathfinder tales are all (so far as I have seen) location and lore accurate...

Hook in! :)

The Inner Sea Primer in the Player's Companion line is designed to be a 32 page summary of the massive Inner Sea World Guide.

But honestly I don't think it's the way to go either. That book is broad but incredibly shallow.

I got more hungry for Golarion lore by choosing a region I thought I would like to adventure in, and then got the Free Players Guide for the Adventure Path (AP) set closest to that area.

It helped if it was one of the early APs, because back then the Paizo staff were teaching themselves as well as their customers about how Golarion worked.

If I was interested enough, I found buying the first few AP volumes for the areas I was interested in, and reading the Intro to the Adventure and Backmatter articles excellent for picking up lore as a story being told, rather than as a dry encyclopaedia entry in the ISWG.

**Warning** this approach can get addictive ;)

If you don't fancy shelling out for everything there are always the players guide to the adventure paths that will give you a taster for free. Golarion is a whole world it's just too damm big to get a proper handle on. There will be somewhere in Golarion where your character concept could call home.

A thought. In Golarion the person who knows most about it is arguably Kreighton Shaine master of scrolls at the pathfinder society. He is also on the loopy side. These two facts may not be unrelated.

What a fantastic discussion!

+1 to novels. I do enjoy the Inner Sea World Guide. It's a great overview. To this I'll add the Pathfinder Wiki. There are times when you need a short burst of information. Both will provide this.

I have shelled out for some of the Player Companion and Campaign Setting guides. They have often been excellent. The Qadira, Absalom, Dragon Empires Gazeteer and City of Strangers guides were particularly engrossing reads. Everything I've read has informed and enriched the settings of both my PbPs and my in person games. I've gotten amazing details out of these sources!

PS GMs! Sign up for your PbP Gameday Games!

The approach I took has to parts:

1) Skim the Pathfinder Wiki and just click down the rabbit hole. Whatever looks cool, I'd open in a new tab to read next. Some pages resulted in 10 new tabs of reading, which in turn spawn their own new tabs. It sort of spirals out of control, but since it was all stuff that I found interesting, I had a great time :D

2) When making a character, I try to find a place they could feasibly come from. I like to use my Inner Sea World Guide and my Inner Sea Gods as a cross-reference to filter through potential places. Then I learn as much as I can about those places until I find one that fits. It is time consuming, but the result is what I want. Reading relevant Pathfinder Wiki pages helps with this too once I've narrowed it down.

I've found that doing both of these things really expanded my knowledge of Golarion.

Learning the basics of the Inner Sea Region's map helps too. During mission briefings, I typically know where I am, where I am going, and how I'm getting there which REALLY helps my immersion. There is a distinct point in my PFS career where it started to feel like I was actually a character in the world (as oppose to just sitting at a table and rolling dice) and it happened when I started to learn the basic geography and historical events.

1) Skim the Pathfinder Wiki and just click down the rabbit hole. Whatever looks cool, I'd open in a new tab to read next. Some pages resulted in 10 new tabs of reading, which in turn spawn their own new tabs. It sort of spirals out of control, but since it was all stuff that I found interesting, I had a great time :D

I'll second the recommendation to check out the wiki (see HERE). You may rest assured, though, that at this point in its development it doesn't spiral out of control anywhere near as much as TVTropes, which I am resolutely not linking to. No need to thank me ^_-.

Let's talk about the upcoming Gameday: Where can I find the sign-up sheets for scheduled games? I've seen very few advertisements so far.

Here is the master list of all the currently registered Gameday tables with links to their sign-up sheets/threads/etc. :)

Granta,

Was the Solstice Scar signup sheet intentionally made view only for some reason?

IHIYC: I completely agree with your sentiments, and that is the reason that I am looking to educate myself. There are too many people (myself included) that muddle about with no idea of the history or the "why" of a situation. The Wiki and Archives, as well as D20PFSRD have filled in gaps for me, but it is my desire to know more that drives me here. As for my post, I did not mean "Overly flavored rulebook" to be disparaging or imply the knowledge was not useful, simply as my opinion and description of the layout and writing style of that particular text. I will get through it and will most like enjoy it once I get time to sit down and immerse myself in it.

Eadie + Merisal: I have many of the free players guides, and you are correct.. the history and backstories are often pretty rich.

Hmm, Gummi, John: Thank you for your inputs as well. I have recently discovered the Wiki, and find it just as you describe, and almost as bad as youtube for falling down rabbit holes! Definitely something I plan to incorporate!

Thank you all for your thoughtful input here!

If stuff tickles your fancy, consume as hard as you can. I have a thing for Hellknights, and they are deeper and more complex than the simple stereotypes people paint them as. The more you read, the more fascinating the layers of detail.

I really enjoyed the scenario Orders from the Gate with my Order of the Gate Hellknight.

I didn't want it to end :)

I had a similar reaction to Hellknights feast. Awesome group that I would like to learn more of!

Yeah that Blakros series is excellent - I think it works out as roughly an 11 or so scenario arc through PFS that I put my local group through.

A high adventure epic of ripping yarns!

I'm with Shifty, I find the Hellknights interesting and I'm waiting to play Orders from the Gate with my own Order of the Gate Hellknight for the same reason.

Blakros as well, I had a character get the boon that makes them have a bigger connection to the family wait 2 years at 7.2 so I could play the Matrimony with him. Totally worth it.

Granta,

Was the Solstice Scar signup sheet intentionally made view only for some reason?

Yes, but that reason is super-duper secret and no longer applies. It most definitely was not a mistake.

We've got a bit over a month before GD6 launches and I've seen an awful lot of GD6 signups go around, but I was wondering if anyone is looking to run something a little faster paced between now and the start of GD6?

You can do a scenario in a month but it requires a major time commitment from the GM since realistically they would need to check in multiple times during the day. And it would require the players to do the same. The game is as fast as it's slowest player and very few players can manage to not only post more then once a day but to read everything they missed when they wake up or get home from school or work. Even if they read it all they may miss important bits like party buffs or pending saves.

If it happened at all it would probably need to be a dungeon crawl, Investigation or choices slows things down.

You can do a scenario in a month but it requires a major time commitment from the GM since realistically they would need to check in multiple times during the day. And it would require the players to do the same. The game is as fast as it's slowest player and very few players can manage to not only post more then once a day but to read everything they missed when they wake up or get home from school or work. Even if they read it all they may miss important bits like party buffs or pending saves.

If it happened at all it would probably need to be a dungeon crawl, Investigation or choices slows things down.

Unless, of course, one has 'pre-scripted' actions from the party to help deal with some of the choices/slowdown points.

Really helps a lot if you can get everyone on board.

Which helps a bit, but the more you bot players, the less role playing there is, and the bigger risk you (and they) are taking with their characters. It is a rare GM that will play all the characters as well as the person who makes them up.

Wasn't necessarily meaning one that would end before gameday, just nearby. I've found that many of the newer 1-5 adventures tend to be shorter because a lot more of the combat is optional and sometimes an encounter can wrap up in a few days of RP rather than a week of combat.

If there are enough takers I may consider running a faster paced tier 1-5. Thinking of possibly running the Horn of Aroden.

Greetings! To the following players:

GM Andrew
Bigguyinblack
PJP
Aerondor
Granta
Luke_Parry

I've put up the Game Day Thread for my Treacherous Waves CORE table. If you'd like to check in and decide on a party, please feel free!

The link for the game is HERE

@Debug: Since there haven't been many new tables firing lately I'm sure you will find a group easily. It only took a couple hours to fill up my table a few days ago.

I would be interested in 5-19 myself.

GM Alias engage!

Alright, I'll start to prep that one and post recruitment probably tonight. That is unless GM Hmm already has a google slides prepared for that one already...

A google slide show of 5-19? I don't that one prepped, but some other GM might!

I'll get it prepped tonight and send you the file for future distribution. Any interest in playing it HMM?

Ohh, that one looks really cool. If you think it will be almost done (if not done) by gameday, I'd love to join, although I probably would need to run with a pregen since all my low level characters are in games right now.

me tooo... would love to play that one!

I'll post recruitment tonight. Will be a faster paced game, so I'll be looking for minimum 2 post per day. Will probably run recruitment quickly so we can get going.

@Redelia: You can always roll up a new level 1 since this is tier 1-5.

if we are playing low tier, I'll be playing a brand new 1st lvl as well if I get in.

I finally decided to bite the bullet and make my Hangman Vigilante. I'd love to jump in for the Horn since I need the XP. Sadly Hangmen Vigilantes don't get their defining feature until level 2 :(

If there's a spot I have a brand spanking new Priest of Razmir that could use a game. Not sure how useful this level 1 cleric lol will be.

I'm making a brand new investigator.

The PFS rules for magic ammunition haven't changed, have they? You still have to buy 50 of the same type of magic effect? You can't mix and match or buy partial increments?

Last I knew, that is correct.

There is a boon that allows you to purchase partials though.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Have that boon, and willing to trade for it. Been looking for that elusive tiefling boon.

There is actually a whole thread for it here

Hit a bit of a problem running Slave masers mirror my pc has had a hard di/k issue and my a crobat rea dear won't open or reinstall. So I can't gr ab the images to update google slides. Maybe in future I will set up everything first but I have gone with load as needed until now. Can any other Gms update my slides with the appropriate images. Link is in my header

Cheers in advance

@Vurgan / GM Merisial, Done ;)

Cheers

Thank you Eadie! I love this community!

So do I! :)

GM Hmm, since you seem to keep slides around for PbP prep, feel free to steal mine from Horn of Aroden.

They are here

I hope you don't mind, but I totally also stole them. <_< Just on the off chance that I run the scenario, ever. On another note, it looks really neat. :D Your slides + the frog of war are excellent resources. ^o^

Better not peek. :P

The PFS rules for magic ammunition haven't changed, have they? You still have to buy 50 of the same type of magic effect? You can't mix and match or buy partial increments?

Related question: is it 2000gp or 8000gp to buy 50 seeking arrows? Seeking is a +1 enchantment.

-Posted with Wayfinder

You can not buy seeking arrows. You have to buy +1 seeking arrows.

Costs
2.5 gp for 50 normal arrows
+6*50=300 for masterwork
+8000 for +1 and seeking.

Total 8302.5 gp.

On chronicle sheets you can find single +1 seeking arrows for 166, because the 5 copper is small change for any adventurer.

Unless you just want the versatility, it's almost always better to buy the bow or crossbow with the bonus than buy the ammo.

I'm facing a similar problem with one of my builds. He's a thrower so I'm trying to figure out some way to give him 3 or 4 rounds of javelins and darts(for each hand) without buying 6 or 8 times the number of magic weapons an archer with a magic bow would have to buy to get the same effect.

Unless you just want the versatility, it's almost always better to buy the bow or crossbow with the bonus than buy the ammo.

I'm facing a similar problem with one of my builds. He's a thrower so I'm trying to figure out some way to give him 3 or 4 rounds of javelins and darts(for each hand) without buying 6 or 8 times the number of magic weapons an archer with a magic bow would have to buy to get the same effect.

Would Returning be too expensive for the item in question?

Unless you just want the versatility, it's almost always better to buy the bow or crossbow with the bonus than buy the ammo.

I'm facing a similar problem with one of my builds. He's a thrower so I'm trying to figure out some way to give him 3 or 4 rounds of javelins and darts(for each hand) without buying 6 or 8 times the number of magic weapons an archer with a magic bow would have to buy to get the same effect.

There are to my knowledge to solutions to this problem.

to throw lots of little things the best way is actually a Witch Archetype, the Cartomancer.

Its a heavy price in terms of build but after three levels you have 54 indestructible returning darts.

The other way is to dispatch with the illusion that you're comparable to the archery types, what you really are is a power attacker who needs less movement and buy a single +1 returning (Totem if you want to spend the feat) Spear and vital strike.

If you're a ranger you can even Lead Blades that bad boy and have a nice 4d6/4d8 thrown weapon that keeps you dealing damage like a melee fighter while having the maneuverability of a ranged character.

If I may ask this here:

I've been seeing things about "panoplies" in relation to Occultists (the Panoply Savant Archetype, for example), but they all talk about panoplies as though they're some kind of independent option. They certainly assume the reader already knows what they are. Where can I find the rules for "panoplies?"