Angus Syme's page

Zhayne wrote:

Probably toss out the 'classic' races (dwarves, elves, etc).

Gasp! *faints*

Probably do the reverse for most of the random new ones. The appeal of the idea was always akin to Shadowrun or Warhammer 40k - e.g. a traditional fantasy setting set in a futuristic setting.

While a few of the new ones seem okay (androids) the rest don't really grab me (and one - the Ysoki feel uncomfortably like someone saw rocket racoon and got very excited).

I'm also not sure yet if I'll need to add more of a universal feel to the game (e.g an overall foe, a sense of cosmic horror, the god-empress on her throne - that kind of thing) that exists in most of the far future settings I love.

Looks cool.

Incidentally - with all the numerous speciality classes that have been introduced over the years... Is there ever a chance of a proper necromancer from Paizo? Not an 'it's a speciality wizard or cleric or whatever' but a proper 'lord (or lady) of death. I've been wanting an official one in the game since playing diablo 2....

Just noticed this. I can honestly say I've been waiting for this adventure path since I first started playing dungeons and dragons in the late 70s (I was reading lovecraft at the time...)

Few games spring to mind:

Legends of Anglerre and Runequest (the 6th edition looks fantastic but haven't had a chance to try it).

And it's fairly dead - but I would always look at anything from EPT - the religious book is possibly the greatest guide to how a variety of gods would actually work in a fantasy realm (e.g. people duck down and accept that all of them, no matter what their bent or inclination are worth worshipping - traditional morality goes out the window in the face of an actual divine being)

I get the point your trying to make yet imo it's still both rules and advetures. To me the...

Sort of. The biggest difference between Wizards and Paizo at the minute is the focus on the world/background and gaming. When 4e came out I picked up the core rules and felt like I looking at the rules for playing a minature based board game. Whether or not that was true, that was my first impression. I was being encouraged to buy battlemats, counters and so on, and play a game akin to a dice based WoW.

I stumbled onto Paizo's site and bought a few of their Adventure path modules and the world guide - and loved them. What drew me in (and eventually got me playing for the first time in about 15 years) was it felt like the company was still aware that while a lot of their audience wanted to dungeon crawl, there was room for a large group who wanted to roleplay, not worry as much about min/maxing and just enjoy stumbling around the inner sea.

In this they seem to be capturing the spirit of TSR back in the earlier Forgotten Realm/Greyhawk days - of making Roleplaying games rather than tactical board games (totally my perception - many will argue I'm wrong) - and I can't see them losing their audience who've appreciated them keeping the faith, so to speak.

Brilliant to here that there will be more connection with the west!

Thanks for getting back to me about that, it's one of my minor bugbears about eastern supplements, the idea there's no connection or knock on effect between the two lands (whereas our own history is a web of trade routes, Mongol invasions ping-ponging back and forth between the two and so on).

Looks cool and definitely will pick it up... but as I understand it the standard western races will be mostly replaced with oriental equivalents?

And most of the gods as well?

I get WHY this is happening - all the oriental supplements from 1st edition onwards have always done this to make it authentic but it always breaks the world for me.

If elves existed on Earth I'm suddenly meant to believe that walking from europe to china makes them, what, vanish? Turn into a very loose version or so on? I'd have a much easier time simply imagining an oriental elven empire. I'm sure it will be a great product, but it always seems weird that in the west, the races, classes and environments are all suitably imaginative. Flying islands, winged haflings, etc - whatever the publisher thinks will be spectacular. But when we get to the eastern lands it often feels VERY traditional and almost fearful of a setting change (I know the japanese mangas don't seem to worry about authenticity... they love their elves it seems).

Same with gods. I can imagine they'd have different names, but these aren't just social phenomena and social reflections. You can contact them, they grant spells and can interact with the physical world. Asmodeous and his ilk might have different names in the east, but whether he was called Ravana or Amatsu Mikabosh he's still be pretty much the same being, just working in different areas and pictured in a different fashion.

Anyway - my two cents... I can always shove halflings in Kimonos, orc horse-clans and Elven samurai into my game :)

Cheers for all the advice folks - I was away for the past few days so didn't get a proper chance to reply!

I think some of the ideas (such as cards)and going through situations which require them to make skill checks and a light combat are excellent while others I'm going to ditch

(example - I never ever use battlemats or minatures so attacks of opportunity are next to worthless in my games. Of course that means a lot of combat based skills suddenly become worthless so I need to think of some way of dealing with this pronto :) )

Also great idea about encounters dealing with disarms, grappling etc. I'm not really much of a rules player at heart (my longest lasting game basically involved 'roll some dice. Impress me') but my players love statistics... :) Damn programmers! ;)

I'm starting a campaign next week (for the first time in years) with a bunch of new folk, some who've only played 4th edition, some who've never played any rpgs before.

I'd like to find nice method of easing them into the pathfinder rules and was wondering if anyone had ever been in a similar situation and how you handled it. At the minute I was thinking a basic 'on your way to your first major location you need to fight a few things' scenario but it doesn't help them much when they're choosing characters and so on.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

Qon? Sort of. The tekumel dieties all fall into five basic categories:

1) The examplar of stability or change. E.g. pure stability (Hnalla) and pure chaos (Hru'u)
2) War - karakhan (war to create social order/nobility) and Vilmuhla (war/destruction to tear down the old)
3) Intellect - Thumis (knowledge and the arts that benefit society)and Ksarul (knowledge for self advancement, secrets, magic)
4 Fertility/Femininity - Avanthe (nature/fertility/love), Dlamelish (Lust, pure id, luck)
5) Death - Belkhanu (The soul, the spirit realm), Sarku (survival of the intellect, undead)

Qon (the cohort of Belkhanu) is a sort of spirit guide and protector of spirits and planar travellers. He fights demons, protects mankind and acts a bit like a good ferryman I suppose.

And answering set - good call about the repose domain - that should work, thanks! Not sure about madness though - will mull it over :)

Do the god and the cohort god have to share domains/ For an example, as I recall, Hnalla is a leader ship god, but Dra is the Uncaring (and unactive).

Also, note that the APG has a variety of sub-domains which could give variety.

Definitely not. I tended to throw them up there like that to avoid spewing loads of detail at those who don't know the world. In the above example Hnalla is pure light, stability and social order. His cohort (or assistant god) Dra is a sort of mystical god who represents the spirit renouncing the world and focusing on the mystic glow of Hnalla. Which makes him detached and mystical, sort of like a Buddhist monk in the most extreme sense. Cool background god but I can't imagine any sane player worshiping him. :)

Slightly old school request, but I've always been a big fan of MAR barker's religions and wanted to adapted them into the Golarion world.

For those who don't know the setting, the gods are split along change and stability lines, rather than evil/good and summed up here: http://www.tekumel.com/world_gods.html

I was wondering if anyone had any advice on clerical domains they think might be appropriate for said gods, including the sub-domains found in the recent (and excellent) Players Companion. Some of them (Sarku) are pretty easy as he's close to a standard death god. Others (Dra) seem a lot more obscure.

At the minute I was thinking:

Gods of Stability

* Hnalla / Dra: Law, Sun
* Karakan / Chegarra: War, Glory
* Thumis / Ketengku: Knowledge, Divination, Healing
* Avanthe / Dilinala: Plant, Air, Water
* Belkhanu / Qon: Protection, Travel, (and was lacking a kind of 'soul' one

Gods of Change

* Hru’u / Wuru: Chaos, Darkness, Void
* Vimuhla / Chiteng: Fire, War, Destruction
* Ksarul / Gruganu: Knowledge, Magic (some kind of dreaming one?)
* Sarku / Durritlamish: Death, Earth
* Dlamelish / Hrihayal: Charm, Luck, Lust

But they felt far too concise - with players only really having no choice or at best two out of three options.

Any thoughts from those few people who know the setting would be gratefully received!