Aiddar's page

Hi there.

Another vote here for CotCT. Over midway through running this now (book 5), and having a blast. Of them all, current book (book 5) is probably the least that you would like though (don't want to give too much away, other than to say that it is a bit of a large dungeon crawl, with not as much opportunity for roleplaying as other pieces).

The early books are great, and I can't recommend 7-Days To The Grave enough. As the first book (and some of the later elements....) deal with the Shoanti, having characters from the area makes it interesting. In my group, I had a Shoanti brave who had been kidnapped and missed his chance to perform the rights of adulthood, and thus was regarded by all other Shoanti as still being a child. The fact that he was a 6' 6'' Barbarian warrior was beside the point! The story became (for a while) about his redemption in Shoanti society. Fun :-)

Cheers

Aiddar

Hi there - and as veryone else has said, "Welcome aboard".

A few points that may be of use/interest (feel free to ignore - see rule "1")

1) Rule "1" - it is your (and your friends) game. You may run into some oiks who try to tell you you are playing badly/wrongly/whatever. Ignore them - if you are having fun, then you are doing it "right" (in so far as that means anything). Hopefully you won't run into any idiots like that, but they are around

To expand your game, there are a couple of things I can recommend

2) Have a look on line - there are LOTS of things you can (quite legally) lift from web sites and use. Paizo here has some add on adventures specifically for the Beginners Box; Likewise, there is an additional PDF you can get designed to make moving to the "full" game much easier. Have a look, and don't be afraid to steal ideas

3) Using pre-made adventures. Thoughts on this vary, as many people like to create their own adventures, but I think when you are just starting out, having a helping hand with a pre-designed adventure is a really good idea. There are some designed specifically for the beginners box as complete adventures. I am cursed with a bad memory though, so can't remember the names of them. I believe they had quite reasonable reviews, though, so may be worth looking up

4) If you want to spend some money, some of the better options include:-

a) The Bestiary 1 - a whole lot of new monsters. If there are sections on the descriptions or stats you don't recognise, ignore em, and just use what you recognise

b) The GameMasters Guide is also a good book if you are just starting out. It gives you a good grounding on running adventures, how to handle problem players, etc etc. Pretty good book in my opinion

c) The Core Rule Book ("CRB") - bit odd listing this one last, as it is truly the core of the system. The reason I listed it last is that it is chock full of rules... The others have bad guys you can pick and choose from, or good generic advice on what to do. The rule book has a lot of rules and can be overwhelming. Very very good book, aned essential at some point, but read the PDF I mentioned at the top first if I were you.

5) Have fun - never get so bogged down in rules that you spend 30 mins trying to work out what the book says - take a punt, guess at how hard it should be, and make the player roll for it ("OK - you are wearing a blindfold, on the back of a dragon, and you want to jump off just as it passes over the mill pond (which you can't see), stealing the bad guy's dagger as you go, making a perfect swan dive while singing "All Hail Desna". "sigh*. OK - lets start with a perception roll, DC 35 or so and work from there..."). Look up the rules AFTER the game - try not to use too much time in game.

Bahh - I could go on and on, boring you to tears. I'll end with just remember it is a game, and it should be played as such, not a competition. As GM, any time you want to kill the players, you can. Your "job" (apart from having fun) is to to give the players a chance to kill themselves ;-)

Cheers

Aiddar

I may be different, in that I had no subscription to Dungeon or Dragon - I just came across this hard-back book with a big adventure in it (Shackled City I think :-)) and thought - wow, these guys are cool.

I went on the website and subscribed, starting with an adventure called "Burnt Offerings" - after all, it looks cool, and if I didn't like it, I could always cancel the sub...

4-5 years later, I am still here, buying FAR too much stuff for my wallet's health!!

I think there are less and less of us "Charter Subscribers" these days - I remember hearing from the boards here that approx 4-5 months ago, we were down to about 1,100 or so? Either way, the board title is a nice little tribute that give me a little glowy feeling of warmth ehheheheh Of course, if Paizo wants to hand out other freebies to the loyal-1000, please feel free (other than continuing to provide some really good adventures, of course!) :-)

Aiddar

Hi there.

I had an archer (ranger archer) created in my game for the first time, and the power they have is quite impressive.

The key thing they get (from my view) is multiple attacks (as they can stand still), while "normal" melee types often have to move and thus lose their ability to do multiple attacks. It just gets worse when you add in many shot/fast shot etc. When archers get to add their STR to the rolled damage as well, that is when things really stack up. In the game, it is not usually the number of dice that cause problems (even though rolling lots of dice looks good), as they are self averaging - it is the fixed adds that really boost damage potential

In terms of reducing their impact....

1) Play the rules as written. This is key. If you fire into a melee, there is a -4 penalty to hit, unless you have the Precise Shot feat. Likewise, if there is someone (does not matter - friend or foe) in between the archer and their target, the target gains another +4 to AC (i.e. effectively, an additional -4 penalty to hit). This is countered by the improved precise shot feat. Note that the prereqs for this last one are fairly high, but the issue is that a ranger can select it even if they do not meet the pre-reqs.

2) Used range guys on your side - fight fire with fire

3) Have mobile bad guys who force the archer to move (i.e. treat them as a spell caster) - once they are forced to move, they lose all those nice attacks

4) Rules nerf:- disallow rangers from getting improved precise shot until they meet the other reqs

5) Rules nerf - declare that either comp longbows do not exist in your world, or they do, but they do not allow STR bonus.

6) Rules nerf - declare that when using many shot/rapid shot, STR bonuses cannot be added for any shot extra shots

Of course, the other option is to boost the other melee types - the easiest way of doing that is to allow multiple attacks even if they move...

Hope some of those help!!

Hey there.

Done this a number of time - introducing new players is great fun. First off - work out what type of learning style the different people have. At the end of the day, as well as having fun, they are learning (some of!) the rules to a game. Making that rule "absorption" as painless as possible will enhance the game, in my experience. Different people learn in different ways, and trying to get people to read the CRB when they much prefer to talk about rules, just will not work. As such, be prepared to use different methods for different people. That said, two of the key useful things I have had are:-

1) Crib Sheet - a nice, large font easy to read note. It explains a) How to hit things, b) how to damage things, c) how things hit YOU and d) how much damage you can absorb. In addition, it covers the basics of the game - (roll 1D20 and add something). Tacked on the end is the comment:- DON'T PANIC!! If you want to do something , but don't know how, DON'T WORRY! Just tell the GM and HE/SHE will tell you what you need to roll! If you can imagine it, you can try it....

2) Character summary, but high level. Kind of "You are a trained warrior, good at hitting things, and absorbing damage (and even better at avoiding being hit....). You stand up to the bad guys and hold the line against them. You are not too subtle(all that metal armour means that sneaking is just not your thing)and tend to tell people as it is. Think Boromir from "Lord of the Rings" i.e. appeal to sterotypes for the first couple of games.

Oh - and have fun!!

Aiddar

Hi there.

No prezzies, but am hoping to run a game over the Christmas break. It will probably be a one off, involving a bunch of barely sane goblins as they attempt to recover some of those nice exploding "fire-werky" things... Of course, they will be able to trust each other, being of the same tribe and all... ;-))) Hopefully know the adventure I am talking about!

Aiddar

I *know* that the accepted wisdom is that there will not be any BB2 ("Expert") set of rules being produced, primarily as a) Paizo do not want to split their player base (BECMI Vs AD&D) and b) the intention of the BB was that players, when ready, moved onto the core rulebook...

However.... The leap from BB to the full rule book is a large one. Would it be viable for a BB2 to be produced, with the express intention of covering the same (or at least, some) rules as the core rulebook, but with an easier introduction? I am talking about bringing people up to the same standard of the core rules (or perhaps to 50% of them - there are a lot!), but without throwing them into the deep end, after they have just learned to dip their toes in and paddle?

Perhaps it is just me who thinks the shift from BB to the "full" game is a daunting one, but I think there might be a market for it. After all - in thery, with the BB, there will be a whole new set of players/GMs who may have never seen a rulebook the size of the core rulebook, and may be put off by it...