Michael Brock wrote: Ugh. Just went to purchase tickets and now the cheapest is $430. I may just wait it out to see if prices drop. If not, I probably am not going to go. Between that and $325 for the hotel, it is just too close to Gencon to spend almost a $1000. :( I spent $1600 on Paizocon 2009 and it was by far the best convention I have ever been to (including Gen Con), mostly because it was easier to get around the hotel, and they have vans that will drop you off and pick you up from the airport, or to and from Dinner. The guys at Paizo are really friendly and are open to ideas and/or feedback about their products. It is a more relaxed atmosphere and I found it refreshing to be able to converse and game with people who really love the hobby, and it shows. I was fortunate to be able to get into Erik's "Spire of Nex" game and eventually would like to see firsthand, some of Wes's gothic style or James's surreal open-style games. Also of Note, Tim Hitchcock is amazing as a GM and Greg Vaughan runs a excellent game of "Dr. Lucky" if you ever see an open chair at their table, you need to fill it. It is worth the trouble, the money, to do at the very least once. The greater Seattle area also has a lot to offer.
Michael Brock wrote: I'll be there. Stop by and say hi. I'm DMing 9 slots so most of my weekend will be spent in the gaming hall. It is nice to see all the slots being run this year. I have attended Dragon con over 20 years and decided not to go this year due to not as much gaming going on last year, felt like it was dying out or that the focus of the convention was taken away from gaming. Instead I went to Gen Con and wasn't disappointed. Next year , maybe I can attend both.
Krome wrote:
Speaking as one of the two Hellnights (Order of the Nail) inducted back at Paizocon 2009, in my service to Paracountess Zarta Dralneen, I have felt no diffrent than any other "tender flesh puppet" she commands. My title of Hellknight did not come from the purging of devil however, I admit, I was compelled to dispatch her imp(James Sutter) when we spoke. Gorum tells me a path to glorious battle springs forth from her lips and so far, every word brings pain and blood. Just the way I like it. Out of Character~ Not sure if they will do that sort of thing in a senario. I have not seen in any module where my title has made a diffrence in the outcome.
Auspician wrote:
Thank you guys for posting the pics for us who were not able to attend this year. Keep em coming!
Vic Wertz wrote:
Thanks Vic for taking a moment. The idea I was trying to get across was to try to give a minor magical enhancement to existing armor piece. I can see now that maybe the idea was not focused enough for the contest. "potentially interesting" is not as bad as "will never work in this town ever again" any day in my book.
Tom Baumbach wrote:
Correct. Sorry, after reading my post I should have been more "to the point"... I was exhausted, it was midterm week at the college. I used the stats for the gibbering mouther, added the flavor of James's goblins, a little water and *poof*; instant frightened players running and screaming for their lives.
Recently had my group investigating a labratory explosion and had to create some interesting twists to the bestiary ( because i like to keep my players guessing) Inspired by James's goblin song I created a variant of the gibbering mouther of goblins singing out of sync. Most of the group fled however, the barbarian half orc nearly died, who stayed flailing at the thing with his greataxe, due to his hatred of "the song". Now, the other players use audible glamor in the form of goblin lyrics in order to motivate the barbarian along through the dungeon.
Matthew Morris wrote: That's kind of awesome and humbling. It's Paizo's baby now, so it falls to them to allow it, but... wow. This item was passed as a boon to the cleric "Ben Caden" (wench master extrodinare, dashing and daring, instigator of merriment) in my regular Sunday game on the 14th from Wataxshyl the copper dragon of Oldfen for spinning a fine tale of Droskar's Crag and relenquishing to him the location of where the casks of dwarven ale lay hidden.
roguerouge wrote: I made Quinn into the cover Clown and had him as an antagonist. Clown Shoes of Elvenkind? Twin Short Swords that look like a bowling pin and a wet fish? What self-respecting adventurer would use them? LOL, funny, yeah, but my group is not above using clown shoes if the magical bonuses are there to justify it. You sir ARE evil... however, i can not deny the logic. The sneak attack from an invisible bowling pin had to be painful to watch.
Remco Sommeling wrote:
I had a staff over here I thought was pretty empowered but then the darn thing broke into seven parts.
Clark Peterson wrote: We don't want to have to DQ people. But we will. When we said last warning we meant it. Don't make me bust out the Wand of Orcus. Angry Spirit has a readied an action to jump behind Neil just in case NSpicer's saves are better now that he has advanced in the Module Developer prestige class.
To everyone at Paizo involved I just wanted to thank you for the chance to enter the contest and have my idea looked over by professionals (Signature Rivet of the Craftsman). The business is tough I am sure, and I know you guys are working extra hours to give us quality products on a regular schedule. It means a lot to us who may not like our day job to sit back and dream a moment about "What if I could get noticed, or what if I could some way contribute to my favorite hobby?". It says a great deal about the quality people you have who takes time out to do this contest and I wanted you to know it is appreciated. To the 32 finalist, congrats and thanks. I already see two items I want to use in my regular Sunday night game.
Dissinger wrote:
Grick spotted in module: D1 Crown of the Kobold king in room #2 of Droskar's Crucible roosting in a vent.
Larcifer wrote: To my abject horror, and in the middle of the writing process, he was born at 5 months, he lived for an hour and a half, he died in my arms. I grieved, I felt immense joy at meeting my son and holding him, but i was crushed that he was going to die. My wife and I gamed with you at PaizoCon last year and we have a daughter who could leave us any day. We both just want to tell you we are sorry for your loss. If you had to step away from writing, I am sure James would have understood. Professionals have back up plans and can work around life events. If you are like me, in a rough time, I kind of dive into my work. It helps me heal.
Joshua J. Frost wrote:
Mad has just posted the information I have on them. Shy, contrary to his name, is quite responsive. Thanks Mad!
Reading over the module it had occured to me my group may have some difficulty. I have 5 regular players and three of them are evil, two are neutral, all are players under the age of 21 with a kick in the door mentality.As I get to page 16 in the module and the good writers Nick and Tim mention "evil characters can still play the senario" in a sidebar and I think to myself "Ok, lets give it a shot". Carnival of Tears spoilers herein: Day 1, My evil elven fighter, wizard meets Kimi's mom from "Crown of the Kobold king" and decides to put moves on her while the husband is convieniently away, making the relationship between the party and Kimi estranged. Ralla, Hollin's sister, who works in the brothel becomes a regular stop for two of the other players to spend some gold. I explain to the group the Carnival is coming and may help give some hope to the people of falcons hollow, in hopes to get them motivated.
Carnival time, and I am looking to give out virtue points. At the ticket booth, several beggars are asking for coin to join in a little merryment. Easy virtue points, right? The ranger of the group produces a gold coin from his pouch and tells two bums to fight, the winner gets the gold. This causes one to strangle the other. The ranger then backs out and offers instead a bag of silver to the best fighter of the ravel. This starts a mob, and after the carnies step in to break up the fight, no less than four towns folk lay dead. No virtue points here. The ale tent and a drunken lumberjack sees a PC that he has had words with in the past comes over to insult Adventurers in general.This leads to hurt feelings and comes to punches at the would be hero who then pulls out his scimatar and admantine hammer and obliterates the lumberjack with two swift strokes. Holding his weapons on high he warns any other loggers if they dont shut their mouths, they can die the same. No virtue points here. Later, the vacant tent and the group notice a wealthy aristocrat who has paid Kabran Bloodeye for the services of his ladies. One tries to buy her off the noble for his own purposes, one offers to guard his tent for the aristocrat for possible favors later, two others pay to join in the fun. No virtue points here. Needless to say, the virtue point total was a little less than stellar when it was said and done. Syntira was never seen, giving up hope for the town, she and her court decided to stay out of the private war of the cold rider. This presented a little more of a tricky module for me to finish. I was fortunate that one PC made the save against the Eye of Rapture. This caused the party to think he had lost his mind. It wasnt until they approached the beer tent filled with trees that others noticed the strangeness too. Maybe they can still live through this. A fight with the pixie turned the ranger to a tree, later to be seen by lumberjacks who were agrivated someone put a sculpture of the adventurer who killed a fellow jack earlier that day in that same tent.
The titans wheel almost killed another as one adventurer fell into the manacle trap as participants stood in line to spin it. The fighters agreed they need to get to the bottom of this. The ringleader Namdrin Quinn "obviously" must be slain to stop this crazyness and they ran off to his tent to do just that. Now, in the module, the authors say Quinn does not attack the players even if provoked. Why? I dont think it is in Quinn's best interest to be emo enough to just let the players kill him and loot his corpse. Look at all this free loot he would be giving them. I decided to try a diffrent approach. As they entered the tent, Namdrin is getting confirmation from two of the cold rider's frosty chislers "All is going according to plan, you have served us well Mr Quinn and as promised you will be reunited with your wife, as long as you stay out of our way." The players were aware of Namdrin's loss and the rogue of the group disguised herself as his wife to disorient him before attacking him. The conversation between Quinn and the chislers was the turning point for my evil path and with a good diplomacy check the players were able to speak to Quinn with the promise they would help him find his wife if he helped them with the fey problem. From that point, I used Quinn in the place of Syntira and the information she would have offered came from the gaunt elf who slowly realized the cold rider fed him only lies. We ended the game at that point this evening, I feel confident they may be able to pull out of this one. Nick and Tim are good writers, a little demented, dark and sick individuals but the concepts are good and challenging. It is fun to watch my players wretch at descriptions of children walking by licking twitching eyeballs on a stick.In my opinion fey CRs may be a little low. They gave my APL 5 group a harder challenge. The frosty chislers curse is interesting but I would have just left it at the 1d6 damage and dropped the stat damage. The fight with the swineomancer may be more interesting if you could have added a spell that adds weight (girth) to a target. Lowering Charisma, exhaustion and maybe giving -2 Dexterity due to armor not fitting well. The Freak show is good but I would have liked to know what happens to the freaks after the events. Why no animated Modern Machines? I know there isnt much that can be done with already printed modules, I hope this may help future modules be more well rounded. Still, I am having a blast with the module. Please keep writing them.
Lilith wrote:
A night writer myself. By day I play Mr. Mom to my three youngest children, attend college and try to make my wife's life as stress free as i can. Kids are probably the biggest energy drain, my youngest has arthrogryposis ( she can not move her arms or legs) and takes the majority of my time. At night, the chaos stops and I can create new works in relative serenity. Love my kids... glad their school starts in two days... yea!
Joshua J. Frost wrote:
Josh, You may want to try Shy Aberman. He was in charge of the gaming in general. Brooks I have not seen this past Dragon Con. I have been attending Dragon con since 1989 and I dont know if it is just me but I feel Gaming has gone from the "main event" of Dragon Con to a small side show. I can remember when the event was about 2K attendance and now I think they are about 40,000 these days. There were few tables of any tabletop games that I could see and it was disheartening. Dragon Con has become more of a melting pot of different interests. I myself am attending my first Gen Con this year to find more of a focus on table top gaming.I hope to see you there.
James Jacobs wrote:
So, in order to find the Giant invisible rabbit you have to make a Perception DC 20(invisible)-Size catagory(Giant is... er um which size catagory would Giant be under) but you still have a 50% chance to miss the entry in the Bestiary. Just be glad they did not add the dire template..."its got fangs like this!"~Monte Python
Callous Jack wrote:
I remember the old hook horror, but now when you mention it to me all I can think about is Nick Logue's "The Hook Mountain Massacre" and the awful dreams I had for weeks after reading it.
James Jacobs wrote:
As I remember, that bastard won an award for Howl of the Carrion King. Now he is trying to write for Pathfinder Society. I hope that bastard doesnt try overwriting with Mr. Frost, or he might just get rejected and stuck with a publishing job...
James Jacobs wrote:
I see your point and am glad you have thought of the alternatives. Thank you gentlemen. I would like to see more Pathfinder campaign setting specific type critters next time. I realize this was a core book and needed to cover the basics and get everyone on the same page. Thank you again for all the hard work you do.
First I want to take a moment and tell you guys at Paizo thank you for producing a fine product with the Bestiary. I have been spending the last day or so finally getting to look over it. One of my players had been mumbling about how late it was getting here but to be honest, I would prefer quality of product over a deadline. Craftsmanship takes time and in a world of instant gratification, we seldom get the time needed to insure products are polished the way they need to be. Anyway, I digress... With the assumptions; the Bestiary has to conform with OGL, and is written to speak plainly about critters in general as well as restricted to page counts, etc, I would like for you to consider the following if there comes an opportunity for making a Bestiary, part 2. I want these, therefore I am speaking up about it and would like to hear others thoughts as well. The intention is to hopefully help stir creativity in the exhausted Paizo employees and give you guys a little insight to our needs as GMs. The regular races (elves,dwarves,humans...)to be included next time maybe with examples of commoner, warrior, noble and adepts for us to use at a glance. Often times at the gaming table it would be nice to flip to a page and use common stats if a fight was to break out at the bar, or on the rare occasion the group's rogue stole from that elven shopkeeper. I read somewhere James Jacobs mentioned all non OGL critters were subsituted with equivilents. I have some gaps in my monster lists I would like to see eventually handled.
Thanks for your time and I will continue to throw down ideas as they come to me.
Dementrius wrote:
Just spent the last weekend working with my wife's Master's Thesis and I can not tell you how often I scribbled red ink over the use of "will" and "that"(at least 6 times per page). Because of this, she is not very happy with me at the moment. My intentions were good but this has led me to rethink the way I edit her work. As I see it, I have 3 options in my current situation... Logically speaking,(I can be right) OR (I can be happy) OR (I can be wrong and unhappy.) Tough choice but I am not going with option 3. Good luck to all on the open call!
Paul Ryan wrote: ...or it could depend on how you've got your account set up to ship. If you're set to ship your subscriptions with the Adventure Path, you'll miss out this month unless you change your shipping settings because this month's AP has been delayed until next month. Problem fixed. Thanks!! My players may escape yet another session without the updated monsters but you can not run forever :)
Erik Mona wrote:
I am patiently waiting... If I do not get to buy the module before Paizocon 2010, I hope I can at least get a second chance at surviving the spire at your gaming table next con. I owe you one for that butt whuppin you handed us, but I guess I sort of asked for it after the mending spell incident. The module is really good and it would be a shame not to have it published in my opinion. You could even do a series of modules into smaller bite sized chunks, each one covering a level of the spire if it will work better in your schedule.
I find it odd being a subscriber I figured I would have recieved an email by now saying "we are charging you X amount and you will get the book in a week or two", but I havent heard word one yet. Not a peep. Is it possible I was skipped? I wonder if they are feeding the shipping kobolds or are they rebelling again.
yoda8myhead wrote: I think the point is that no matter how much time they have for editing, they always need, or could at least benefit from, a little bit more. Ah, "I see" says the blind man who pulled out his hammer and saw. In programming, it is the same with "testing time". I have written code that will be used on average 400 times/second. Every time someone uses a credit card to make a purchase there is a chance of an error. There is never enough testing time in my opinion. I can relate.
Larry, Neil has it all covered and I have learned something about effective critique by reading his review. All I can say Mr Spicer is wow, just wow. I think Robert Jordan's Wheel of time series has less words than your review guy. :) I like it though. Larry, I liked the idea and I know you know what you are doing. Good luck next call!
I think her web blog is great, but I am still trying to figure out the formula of n+1 time. Where "n" is the time they actually have, and they have 4 sets of eyes on any given product then the actual time of editing should be I think "t" for time unit. 4t/1 or translated as four units of editing over 1 unit of time (or how long it takes to do the total job). There must be a lot of fuzzy logic in publishing. I am curious how much time (ideal, not actual) they give from start to finish of a project. I say ideal because I have read where James Jacobs mentions some projects have had problems and a second writer will be called in to save the project at the last minute. I imagine this is not the norm but has to be factored in when the project is created.
I want to make sure you are seeing the page I am seeing. Can you send me an email address I can send a screen shot and the HTML I am getting? putting in bold the change that needs to occur. Change the href to the same as the working page. not working account page
working page from the http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG page as follows... <A title="Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility License" href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatibility"><IMG border=0 src="http://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/PZO/PZOCOMPATIBILITYE_180.jpeg" ></A>
Gary Teter wrote:
Yes Gary, that is the image.The problem is on the rendering page, not the image itself. I think you need to directly href the anchor tag instead of indirectly referencing it so that it displays properly. the .jpg does not show on my account page. For some reason the indirect href can not find the http://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/PZO/PZOCOMPATIBILITYE_180.jpeg. Coffee is on the way. Do you prefer Hazelnut or French Vanilla?
yoda8myhead wrote: To be fair, skraeling are mentioned as appearing in Arcadia, but that is very, very far from Falcon's Hollow and the name was one given them by the Ulfen settllers there. Might be a better fit in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings. But I think the Native American influenced stuff really fits in Arcadia (or maybe in the Storval Plateau, if used to influence the Shoanti). This would be a real good Lands of the Linnorm Kings adventure. The fact it was an unknown tribe meaning(large bodiment of settlers undiscovered in the vale)made me think "wouldnt that be too large a civilization to go unknown near Falcons Hollow?" or at least without some detailed explaining of why there is no trade going on, bison being seen, tales of savage tribes wearing ash and blood in Darkmoon vale. Honestly though, the senario would make a good candidate for the Third Veil Druids type adventure if they could have tweaked it more.
+1 On the abuse of PM. Maybe as a feature of an online PFRPG game to help GMs get information to specific players but not as just a social tool. It may get into legal complications if someone "stalks" someone and that would be the last thing i want to see on CNN. I am still rebuking christian groups over what happened in the 80's over my beloved "world's most famous RPG".
In the https://secure.paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/myAccount page. Looks like it can not find the image for the "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game compatability licence" in the menu bar. It is just a file pathing issue. Code from the offending page is... <A title="Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility License" href="/pathfinderRPG/compatibility"><IMG border=0 src="http://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/PZO/PZOCOMPATIBILITYE_180.jpeg" ></A> code is the working code from the http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG page as follows... <A title="Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility License" href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatibility"><IMG border=0 src="http://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/PZO/PZOCOMPATIBILITYE_180.jpeg" ></A> This code tells me two things. One, copy&paste will get you every time and two,you guys need have a single image folder to reference that no matter how large the site map gets, your references to the image folder will not accidentally change on you causing src file not found errors. If you have to copy&paste, checking to see if the hrefs point to the right image folder will be one less problem to worry about. Hope this helps.
Please take the following comments as a creative critque. The Good:749 words.This idea is something totally unexpected, it's diffrent and has a spanish explorer feel with the "fountain of youth" and "cities of gold". You have done your homework on native tribes of greenland the norse discovered. This senario was gutsy to me. Good equivilents used for the buffalo constructs and bloody bodies. The Bad: It feels like you have not read your pathfinder background material. A lot of the ideas in this senario clash with preexisting material and may have caused you the veto. Now on to more specifics... You mention that Clovis, the guy who leads them to the natives is a werewolf and will attack them. Like Yoda, I agree werewolves need to be handled with care and can lead to a total party wipe especially right off the first encounter. If you give the character a chance to have weapons that will affect the creature early in the senario, I am more willing to like a werewolf in an encounter. Werewolves are much better in home games than a PFS. So, if the players fight the skraelings, does the werewolf change form still(T1=CR3+CR1*6 may be a bit too powerful) In encounter 4, you mention a ship. Is this ship in the Darkmoon river or is this like an air ship? It is hard to picture where the senario fits into the maps of Falcon's Hollow and surrounding areas. In encounter 6, what happens if Nunyunuwi can not work to keep the spirit hostile? Does the spirit turn on Nunyunuwi? What I would improve on: This falls under the "know your material" and "know your audience" catagories. Your submission has educated me.thanks. I had been looking through my early American history book to try to find a reference to skraeling because the summary made me wonder if you used a native american tribe.
Please take the following comments as a creative critque. The Good:722 words. The pitch is good. I like the fact its low key, not "save the world" feel to it.I like the "who done it?" Sherlock Holmes investigation style of this submission. The outline format is easy to read and you have put thought into the tiers. I like the simple, to the point encounters. The Bad:In the Summary, you have the players having trouble getting information from a Andorian scholar which is a good (solve murder A to get artifact B logic)but it is not your first encounter. How do the players know to look into the black market? Do they start there? Major NPCs(Kreed) need to stay out of direct contact in PFS encounters IMO. The part of Kreed can always be played by an underling of his. If the priest had no part in the assassination, how do these items stolen from the victims point to him? I can see how the "buying of snakes" makes him a suspect. Also, why is the druid trying to frame the priest? How do the the players eventually stumble onto Victor Shadowgleam? The only connection I see is the players find the location where the snakes are captured. This really is the only major flaw. There needs to be stronger evidence to suggest the druid to be the target of the player's wrath. What I would improve on: Your submission is good. The strong evidence tie is the only real flaw. Good luck next open call!
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