Aleister Bastian's page

Thanks for the ideas, much appreciated.

I'm planning to run DotMM set with in Golarion and I'm trying to figure out what a good in world equivalent to the Xanathar's Guild would be. I've planned to make Halaster some ancient crazy Thassilonian as that kind of fits with his motif and I've got a feeling that the dungeon itself would fit well in Varisia and one of the many ruins around.

Just having a hard time finding a faction that would happen to be a good replacement for that crazy crazy beholder and his ilk.

Does anyone know or have the published the base stats of the plant companions. Or am i just misinterpreting the +x natural stat in the stat block

In my opinion since the alchemist is given Brew Potion, an item creation feat, at level 1 it would indicate that alchemists do indeed qualify for item creation feats.

drat. although it gives me a few ideas

If a character relieves a pale stranger of his 2 pistols do they still supernaturally reload them selves or does the character need to manually reload them.

Pistols(Su) A pale stranger fights with two pistols. A pistol has a range increment of 20 feet and deals both bludgeoning and piercing damage. At a range of up to 20 feet, a pale stranger's pistol attacks resolve as touch attacks. While pistols normally consume bullets and black powder when fired, a pale stranger's pistols supernaturally reload the instant it fires them, allowing the undead to make multiple attacks in a round with the weapons. In addition any pistol a pale stranger wields functions as a +1 pistol. A pale stranger does not provoke attacks of opportunity when it fires a pistol in melee, and treats pistols as light weapons for the purposes of determining penalties from two-weapon frighting. Further rules for pistols, and firearms in general, can be found in Ultimate Combat.

I have been unable to find the core classes' ability score requirements, or "key ability scores" for lack of a better term. Have the key ability scores for the core classes not been included in the core rulebook? Are they in the book and I have missed them? I own the 4th printing if this helps, and thank you to those who take the time to respond; I have searched the forums and haven't been able to find this, either. Thank you!

As a note, the ability score requirement was done away with, with the change over from AD&D to D&D 3.5

I would just like to thank the folks at Paizo for finally adding a "dummy" page to the PDF so that the pages line up correctly when viewed in "Two Up" or "Two Up Continuous". Thank you very much.

I was just wondering if Paizo will be making an appearance at Pax Prime in Seattle this August?? It would be great to see another big tabletop RPG there besides D&D.

Funny idea out of this for a high magic setting:

In an area where a major trade route could be significantly shortened if you could have your wagons scale a large cliff instead of going around. A cunning entrepreneur has hired a mage to Stone Shape a number of very sturdy 10x10 outcroppings on the cliff side at 10' intervals horizontally and 30' intervals vertically. He then built 10'x10'x30' scaffolds with 15'x20' platforms resting on top of each ledge, attached to the cliff by vertical rails that run from the ledge to the top of the platform. His final bit of preparation was to commission a pair of unlimited use, use-activated magic items: Create Pit(caster level 10ish), and Feather Fall (Caster level high enough for colossal).

He then opens up shop, ferrying wagons up and down the cliff by casting Create Pit on each ledge, and Feather Fall on each platform in sequence. As the pit appears the platform gently lowers down into it along its rails, and and when the pit vanishes the platforms gently rise up level with the next one, creating a sort of waterless lock.

After the initial investment labour is cheap, since anyone can use the magic items, security is the main cost, and the gold flows in.

+1 for solving the extra-dimensional space problem. A genius solution in my opinion. I'll have to run that by my DM and see if he smacks me for it or not

America Lunatic wrote:

Tough call between Monks, Bards (especially thanks to APG) and Alchemists. Each appeals to a part of me...especially the crazy blow them up with bombs part.

Yay! Another member in "Friends of the Alchemists" we now have 2 :-)

Make that three my friend. My bomb throwing alter ego would be glad to join you anytime

I'd go with this. Its "Night Shift" by Nujabes from the Samurai Champloo music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuchrMJoLCs&feature=BFa&list=PL0B3D1 D27C0521F40&index=33

We actually use a pretty complex Excel spreadsheet to build and check stat blocks; Sean K built the thing, and it's kinda a behemoth, but it saves a HECK of a lot of time in building and helping to proof stats.

That said, there's also hand-checking involved in the stat blocks.

We actually don't use Hero Lab, really, because we're all on Macs at Paizo.

(AND: Nope; we don't make our Excel spreadsheet available to the public, sorry!)

Thank you for the information James. I'm a little bummed that the spreadsheet isn't public but I can understand why.

Out of curiosity is there a possibility that Paizo will ever develop tools for there players to use?

From what I understand they used to do much of it by hand and just check it over several times (and still miss stuff once in a while) but now they use Hero Lab.

I found Hero Lab to be very useful overall. I try to keep up on the bugs list though. It's pretty good but there are a some things it doesn't do well. The company does work constantly to make it a better product and they work very hard to fix bugs. They also help people out on their forums with entering new information.

Thanx for the info Bob, i've been looking at herolabs lately and was wondering if that was what they could be using. Wish i didn't have to pay for it but i understand why one does

Aleister Bastian

I was wondering what sort of tools the Paizo devs use when developing or generating stat blocks for npcs? Also if they do use a tool is it "in house" or third party software?

Well to start things off I would like to say that I appreciate the work that the developers have put into this play test. I have thoroughly enjoyed examining and testing these classes, the gunslinger especially.

Now onto the main topic, the Gunslinger. When it comes to the Gunslinger I looked at it as more of the "Tequila", Hard Boiled, character than the sniper character. I took the approach that this character was in your face, barrels blazing and so far I haven't had a problem with it.

Now while I have noticed that the majority of people who have posted on this play test do not appear to like the idea of grit due to its incredibly small pool of points. While maybe its just the group and the DM that I play with but I have yet to actually run out of grit in games so far. But maybe my group is slightly more theatrical than the groups of other people.

In my opinion the mechanic of grit works the way it is. Maybe the description of grit is what may need to change. The play test states that grit is a measure of the Gunslingers ability to calm himself in the heat of battle, while the ways that you regain grit are anything but that. Perhaps the definition of what Grit is needs to change instead of the mechanic.

Now since I have mentioned regaining grit, in my honest opinion grit is not hard to regain when you look at grit as a measure of the Gunslingers brash bravado and gutsyness with in the middle of combat. A Daring Act, while up to the GM as to whether it counts or not, happens more often in combat than maybe a lot of you are considering.

The only thing that I personally see wrong with Grit is that maybe it should be the total sum of both your CHA and WIS modifiers instead of just your WIS modifier.

So for a campaign that I am in, the BBEG (still in alpha) looks something like this:
(I expect him to last 8-10 rounds, and he will most likely be the only encounter in the week.)

If you want a lower level example of something that should survive for multiple rounds, I need more time to make one, but barbs are a fairly safe bet.

Obviously, it's generally impossible to throw a BBEG at a team of PCs without it being torn into shreds. The party's superior numbers give them the advantage in the action economy, so even an APL+2 opponent would not stand a chance. Of course, there are numerous ways to mitigate this issue, such as putting the terrain in the bad guy's favor, but the classical method seems to have always been to use additional enemies, the so-called "mooks."

Mooks are supposed to act as a buffer by hindering the PCs, but generally they are also supposed to be a little weak. However, what is best way of balancing these two? Make them too strong, and they can punch the PCs full of holes, make them too weak and the PCs can just walk right through them (figuratively) and stomp the BBEG anyway.

Ok maybe its me, maybe its you but I believe that one of us is using the term mook wrong. In my opinion what you have been describing is more of a loyal minion than a mook. I've always thought of mooks as the BBEG's handy body guard, the dude with that little something extra to trip up the PC's.

Also just as a side note if you really want a BBEG to stick around longer than a round he probably should be higher than an APL+2, more likely an APL+4 with some dudes in the room before him or an APL+3 with a mook and a few minions in the room with him.

Lucky streaks happen man. Personally i've got a DM i play with that will consitently roll nothing but 1's, 2's, 19's and 20's, and i know these are legit rolls since he doesn't use a screen to hide what he rolls. Only by giving him what are known as "The Cursed Dice", ie noone can roll above a 6 on them, can we get him to roll normally.

I'm planning on starting the Adventure path pretty soon and i was just wondering what precautions or twists that other DMs have taken with this adventure path.

Also i was wondering how your party compositions have worked out in Smugglers Shiv

I would just tell him the next time you see him that you believe that you are way too powerful, if he does not believe you, get one (or two) of the other players together and discuss whether they believe that you are very powerful. If they agree then have them help you convince the DM.

If, in the end, he decides that you are not too powerful, then find a roleplaying reason to not use all of your resources all the time.

Who knows, the DM may be making you super-powerful so that the party CAN trudge through 10-20 encounters a day by making you the bastion of the party.

No no no he cleary just needs to stop running the epic ranters red disc

If you'd like a great example of goblins in a roleplaying setting with out the evility of the stereotype you should check out Goblins http://www.goblinscomic.com/.
Its a webcomic about a group of goblins fed up with constantly being attacked by level 1 adventurers.

Thanx sorry for not searching earlier

I was wondering if paizo ever considered putting a coupon code for a free copy of the pdf inside of the hardcover books

In the description of the Specialization schools most schools have an ability that says "at 8th level..." does this mean 8th level wizard or character level 8th???