Andreas Skye's page

Dear Paizo,
I have written to you several emails about my sidecart being placed on hold, and items figuring in it that have already been shipped. I hope this situation may be fixed quickly and my subscription shipments resumed.
Kind regards and merry Xmas
Andrés

This week our party defeated nice Itombu... Definitely that verged on a TPK! I wonder how other parties went around that encounter, well, those not having a Paladin.
Definitely a tough encounter for 5th level PCs, especially with the dearth of magical and special gear in the campaign. We just got lucky and managed to hold it at melee while wizard used a Wand of Magic Missile and the Summoner invoked a series of Lantern Archons... it was pretty unelegant, but finally brought the demon down!!!

Any other parties had difficulties there?

Hi Paizo,
I am getting a bit confused with the March order for my AP subscription. I have the option of hold everything for 1 shipment, so the order should include AP19, PFComp Player's Guide to Legacy of Fire, and PFC Dragons Revisited. All this stuff is in my sidecart, but it does not go to my orders page or get an order # yet. Fine, I guess that takes time.
What has puzzled me is that the PFCompanion volume is available for download in My Downloads page, as it happens when my items are ready to ship (and payed for, of course), but neither of the other two products is. Is this normal (just some technical delay in those pdfs getting available to subscribers) or is there any problem on my side? My credit card expired this month but I updated the info with the new expiry date and everything.

Thanks a lot
Andres

Probably the question is a bit silly but, anyway:

Is Wizards developing a consistent color coding (in the bands and spines) for supplements? As in: PHB blue, MM green and DMG dark crimson-y?

So far, Adventurer's Vault is blue (consistent with the items now-players' info thing) and the FR books have their own color band (gold). Now I check the November releases from Wizards and Martial Power looks to have brown bands and Draconomicon blue ones, but I guess those illustration may be placeholders.

Are the color codes part of the product design or just a book-by-book layout aesthetics issue?

I don't know if that has been already discussed, but has anybody produced a document with conversion and location suggestions for playing Savage Tide in Golarion?

Maybe I am thick, but I find a couple ambiguities in the Arcane Schools section on p. 194 which can be problematic:

"In addition to these abilities, each school also grants a
number of bonus spells. Whenever a wizard attains the listed
level, he can choose one spell from his school to prepare every
day as a bonus spell. Instead of gaining a spell of the listed
level, the wizard can instead choose a spell of a lower level,
which he can then prepare twice per day (except for 2nd level).
A universalist can choose spells from any school. Once chosen,
these spells cannot be changed."

Does this mean that Universalists only have to choose a spell of the level which then cannot be changed, whereas specialists may select a school spell from their spellbook at their convenience every time they prepare their daily spells; or that all wizards have to choose an unchangeable spell? The first option seems to make more sense to me, as it gives specialists a bit of leeway.

Second issue, "2nd Level: The wizard can cast any first level spell from his chosen school. This spell is prepared once per day for every
two caster levels he possesses."
Does "caster levels" here imply that other arcane level granting classes, like PrCs, stack with his Wizard level? How do those PrCs affect caster level for special abilities, such as granted at lvl 1?

Hi Paizo,
I am just trying to figure out if something went wrong with the shipment of Order 990092, which included two subscription items: PFA #11 Skeletons of Scarwall and PFC Guide to Darkmoon Vale.
The order shows up as shipped on July 10th, so now it's a bit after the delivery time span (9-36 days with USPS First Class Int. Delivery). I think that the order took place around the time shipping fees increased and you figured out better rates for customers. In the last couple days I have received my next order in two mailings (PFC Campaign Setting, PFA 12, PFC Curse of the Crimson Throne Map Folio, PFA 13 and PFCompanion 1). Those items were shipped August 4th, so that makes me slightly suspicious about the previous order (990092).
I would like to know if there is anything from your side which might help me figure out what went wrong (insufficient shipping fees, return to sender, etc), so that I may know soon whether I should re-order or not
(if you have some info on how long delays may go in that kind of international delivery, that would also be appreciated).

Regards and thanks for the good work.

I am trying to figure this out right:
Are Animates (Undead and Constructs, for instance) affected by Sleep and Psychic Powers?
I see noting in the MM indicating their immunity. Undead and animates do not need to sleep as per the glossary, but it does not say they cannot be forced into it.
Looks wrong, freakish wrong if PCs can put skeletons to snooze.

Though knowing that you guys at Paizo are flooded with work, I could not help making this suggestion:
Have you considered putting together a mini-AP (or serial single modules) for characters who have finished one of the previous APs (RotRL, CotCT, etc)? Some kind of high-level storyline which took PCs from level 18 or so to 20something. Maybe not as long and detailed as regular APs, but somehow "fleshed out". It would be fun if it could "mix and match" favorite PCs from the previous APs, getting a couple heroes from Korvosa with one or two veterans from Sandpoint.
That would really make my day, and probably others who are playing or played through 2- more PF APs would appreciate the idea.

One of my players, running a Cleric, is aiming at a PrC and I got some doubts of how to manage it in Alpha 3:

1) in 3.5, when a PrC granted +1 level of spellcasting, if the level granted was from the cleric class, it did include the Domain spell (the +1 in the advancement charts).

2) in Alpha 3, domain spells have gone in favor of domain powers (as opposed to, say, sorcerer bloodlines). Same thing could be proposed for wizard school powers/extra spells (instead of bonus specialist school spells).

3) So, for keeping class balance and integrity, should we assume that a PrC which grants levels of clerical spellcasting would also grant domain powers per level (replacing domain spells from 3.5) or specialist wizard powers (replacing extra spell from school from 3.5)? Other powers, of course, like extra feats, better channel energy, familiar/arcane focus development would still be frozen at the actual cleric/wizard level.

Opinions would be nice, and some feedback from the designers' intention would be awesome.

Hi paizo,

I e-mailed this to you but did not get an answer (you answered other issues with my order, so I think my mail could have bounced off):

This order adds to USD 83.21 (which is the right amount, with PFA12 and 13 plus PF Campaign Setting and CotCT Map Booklet plus the free copy of PFComp. 1), then you indicate shipping and handling USD 5.03 (which sounds too little for my option, Standard International), but then the grand total is USD 130.37. The math clearly does not add properly. Could you please explain, all previous postage prices have always been right and that looks a bit baffling. I hope is some lack of sync with real total postage fees, but it would be nice to know (I assume the order is exceptional due to the hardback).

Thanks a lot
Andrés

In my playtest games I've noticed that my players are quite avoiding multiclassing, probably a result of the increased number of class powers in PFRPG.
I was considering on applying the notion of "class ability feats" to make multiclassing attractive again. Not in the 4e way, which feels quite watered down, but something like that:

Multiclass Power (General; Special)

If you have levels in more than 1 class, you may choose this feat to pick up a class ability for a class other than the one which granted you this feat. The ability must be granted by the next level you would get in the class chosen:

* +1 caster level and spells per day
* bonus feat
* channel energy level increase
* sneak attack
* monk AC bonus
* domain / school / bloodline ability

In practice, you can choose one of anything but BAB and saves advance.
If you ever gain a level in the class affected by the feat, the feat stacks with the class level for the pertinent effects (like caster level) or you gain the next level-bound special ability. In other words, you do not get "two of each", for instance, by being a level 2 rogue, putting in a feat to gain 2d6 sneak attack when advancing to ranger 5 and then in your next level becoming a rogue 3.

Any comments, too overpowered or contrived?

I sent you an email on this to customer.service@paizo.com, but I don't know if you handle it better through direct message posting:

I received my subscription shipment yesterday... the invoice noted that the adventure path to get was PF8 Seven Days to the Grave, as it appears in my orders history in the website...
OK, but the book I received by mail is PF7, an item I already own (bought from an independent seller, prior to my subscriptions).

I would like to know how to deal with this (I am an European subscriber, so returns are quite annoyingly slow).

Thanks a lot!

New thread on this topic, but I have not seen it touched elsewhere:
What is the point of having Cleric as favored class for Dwarf and Orc or Wizard for Halfling?
I guess there is some attempt at game balance by providing 2 choices (one spellcasting and one not) for all races who cannot choose fav. class at will, but they do not make sense from any background point of view!

I got that gnome choices are Golarion-related, which is fair, as fav. classes reflect the culture and history of your fantasy world (the PH would try to present a "default" fantasy setting, if such a thing is possible). But in the published material so far I cannot find data which make Dwarfs and half-Orcs especially religious and endowed with theocratic societies, nor ideas about halflings' penchant for academic studies of the arcane! The elf double option is neat (as there is only one Golarion "elf" which combines sylvan and arcane elements), as well as the gnome's (I can see a bunch of gnome sorcerers with Fey bloodlines). But Dwarf, Half-orc and halfling feel like pure metagaming and symmetry devices. I would just keep the PHB choices for backward compatibility, toss the spellcasting option and add a different minor benefit to the race (such an extra language) or try to find a better match consistent with Golarion or with "default fantasy". Half-orcs, for instance, could as well have Rogue in addition to Barbarian: you have the more feral crazy-types and the ones who get caught in the underworld of Golarion urbane centers, hanging around as bodyguards or enforces (as usually seen in Pathfinder materials).

Hello,
well, I've been going through Pathfinder RPG for a few weeks now, and I have not found this topic covered:
It seems that the Cleave and Great Cleave feats now require a hit against one foe, versus the requisite of felling the foe (in 3.5). I cannot see the rationale of this change. The old feats were quite a good method for depicting tank-like warriors being able to mow through rank after rank of cannon-fodder enemies. Recently I have run a couple scenarios with mass battle scenes (MGP Drow War) and the barbarian with Greater Cleave just cut down the ranks of Lvl1 drow warriors which spellcasting officers sent to delay the PCs. That seems to work fine and without game balance issues (Lvl 8 or so warriors should be able to do that, plus it's quite fun and cinematic). The Pathfinder feats seem to be watered down in cinematics and slightly overpowered in game balance. If you're locked hand-to-hand with another powerful foe who keeps fighting back, I don't see any cleaving likely to happen; you're too busy with the first melee to deal a random blow around. On the other hand, the Whirlwind Attack feat did just that, allowed a nimble warrior (as opposed to a tank warrior)to hit any foe in unexpected ways. Against cannon fodder, both feats seem to be equally effective (in my sessions I have a ranger/fighter with Whirlwind At. and a barbarian with Great Cleave); against tougher enemies, Whirlwind gives some tactical advantage. That is ok, as its progression tree and minimum ability scores are more demanding. I wonder why that feat is absent from Pathfinder; these two sets of progression trees were quite good since the beginning of d20 and a good way of adding diversity to melee tactics.

Sorry to begin with criticism, I am really enjoying Pathfinder as a whole!