Arssanguinus's page

I’m in four games and starting to run one.

I’m in a Reign of Winter campaign, so NO SPOILERS MIGHTYPION!

My 16 year old Winter Witch is an arcane prodigy, and on paper should be decent with a longsword and guns, not that she actually ever hits anything. She has however invented and used new spells, so she probably one of the youngest spell creators ever. Eat that Bigby! :)

I’ve got a kobold in rise of the runelords with side project of restoring one of the early found ruins to turn it into an inn.

Then I’ve an orc raised by elves set to deal with a lizard god cult.

And a blue kobold raised by elves (wait, how did I get two “raised by elves?” Hmm, I should pick dwarves next character), that has gone back in time to prevent the fall of a great elven nation. Just started basically, but making contacts.

And the game I’m fixing to run is going to be a game where I keep the rules mainly hidden behind the dm screen, in part because I’m testing some hefty modifications, but also to help players focus on the in-game world instead of the mechanics. We’ll see how that goes. I’ll have everything ready to start with two characters next weekend.

Oh, and I’m trying to find a job because the part time one I’ve got is seasonal and unless I’m lucky or blessed, will end in January.

And lastly, I’m programming a simulator where a bunch of AI agents will compose a village and live by the rules of the dnd 3.5 ogl. In part this is to show my ability (or lack there-of) in programming but also to show my alternative AI design (which was the focus of my degree). I’ve got dots running around the screen already.

Reign of winter

We gamed last Sunday, two combats in and we leveled but we still haven't had a chance to rest.....since we are still in a siege.

I’d say where we are but it would give you spoilers.

We gamed last Sunday, finally got out of that hut and are now on Triaxus defending a fort.

Oooh, that was fun.

I’m not sure what book, but probably nearing the end as we are lvl 14 right now. I’m a halfling too, though not by choice as that is because I reincarnated, twice now, though the first was just background history. My character is mainly winter witch, but with some arcanist, and the gunslinger level. I’m making her out to be a savant of sorts with magic, hence doing unusual magical things and spell creation.

Figure my character will become Selena the one ever rejected by death. :) She has plenty in place to always recover from dying.

Ok. End of book five likely then. I’m a bit ahead of you.

I’m a player in reign of winter right now, we are having fun. I invented a new spell that makes cute little snowball creatures to zoom around and scout. I also took a level in gunslinger, for obvious reasons if you know the adventure.

Which book are you in? I’m midway through six. Halfling winter witch.

Chapter 5 of Reign of Winter is in the books, and we are currently grinding our way through the early stages of Book 6.

The initial fight in Book 5 was EPIC! New to the location, we players all wondered what the heck was going on. But we soon adapted once the Big Guns arrived ;)

RoW has been a great campaign, though I might have enjoyed Strange Aeons slightly more.

Our most awesome GM P has announced we will be commencing Tyrant’s Grasp in the new year. I will likely be playing an Oradin for the first time, if anyone has any build advice.

We’re approaching the end of the middle section of book six of ROW.

Reign of winter, book 6' Maftets. Siege of the castle, water bridge about to bring what itbrings. Witch waiting to blast it.

Captain Morgan wrote:

Yeah, as long as your campaign signposts what lore is useful, you're sitting real pretty with Additional Lore. Especially if you can retrain it when the adventure shifts focus.

I just play an elf and pick up the "Lore skill of the day" with Ancestral Longevity, using Expert Longevity and Universal Longevity to swap it out as needed. :D

Gnomes can be nice in this regard too.

Arssanguinus wrote:

The Druid is “Nature red in tooth and claw’

My take was that selfishness and acting in self interest is not antithetical to nature.

The "balance of nature" is just every single creature acting in its self interest. The rabbit eats the weeds, which stops the weeds from growing too much. The wolf eats the rabbit, which stops the rabbits from eating all the plants. Balance is born from many actors each trying to play their role.

So denying your instincts and desires is going against nature. No need for a grand cause when you are just following your instincts. Kill what you want to kill. It is your fault if you cannot stop me.

Mine was the lawful neutral Druid.

I always viewed alignment as a challenge.

How can I make a LN monk that lies, cheats, and steals?

How can I make a NE druid without it just being a captain planet villain?

The Druid is “Nature red in tooth and claw’

I've read enough XKCD What If? scenarios to know that you need to be very smart to be that stupid.

Most people just wish for something practical and end up dying after they have a lifetime supply of gold dumped over their head. Even more ambitious wishes usually only destroys the tristate area.

And most wizards smart enough to do wish for something truly off the wall- and not wise enough to reconsider- probably kill themselves in some magical accident long, long before they can meet a genie.

So we are talking about an extremely narrow band of possible scenarios that could lead to this destruction. And there are a variety of other ways to have those happen without having a genie present. If you are going to summon outsiders to come and destroy everything around you, it is simpler to just go with demons.

Most people don’t want to destroy the world because it’s where they keep all of their stuff?

Why are people still alive in a world where nuclear weapons exist? Because they are.

There is something like 190000 tons of gold above ground in the real world. Presuming the amount is at all equivalent At fifty coins per pound, I think there’s enough?

Even though I seen SF fans being kinda upset that SF2e is going to effectively be more like a new setting for PF2e rather than its own system with the rules they like, I think its the best idea Paizo could have if they wanted to make Starfinder relevant. Only by looking at the release schedule of SF products you'll notice that is more likely Paizo does it more as a passion project than something that gives them money, though by making it compatible with PF2e you immediately make everyone that plays PF2e at least interested in it, which means its going to initially sell better, and likely the people that already likes to buy all the content from PF2e would want to buy everything from SF2e too since thats effectively more content they can use in PF2e too.

I'm personally in the process of making a setting that could incorporate stuff from both systems more easily since I'm planning to use SF2e content in PF2e, and I seen a ton of people online that are planing to do that too, so its likely Paizo would pivot from the (hyphotetical) success of SF2e and make more standalone-but-not-so-much systems that change some of the core rules.

Seems like it also,massively increases content that star finder aficionados could use and dip into.

Wel), was mainly in the vein of " examples ofuse" which you sort of did.

So, for those of you that run games…

What sort of questions as examples might be appropriate topics for Boneyard Lore?
For undead Lore?
For Necromancy Lore?

Could necromancy lore be used in any way for identifying undead? Likewise boneyard lore? Just trying to figure out some things.

So, as I’ve not run across it … how do you change harrow cards with the absence of alignment? (You yo used to see ‘the lawful good card of strength, con, etc)Or do you just lop off the alignment descriptor.

Perpdepog wrote:

In contrast to Sanityfaerie, my Groetus cleric, Unsaint Visibini, was incredibly upbeat. She belongs to a splinter sect of Groetus worshipers who believe that the end of all things, while sad or whatever, has to be absolutely amazing to be able to observe. Their only real aphorism is "witness, and enjoy." They take it upon themselves to get everybody excited for the show to end all shows, literally.

She doesn't see this goal as a violation of Groetus' anathema of spreading hope, because, while you can enjoy seeing all existence end, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do to stop you and everything and everyone you ever knew from evaporating into oblivion. She will make sure you have a snack, however.

I like this! I've always felt an annoyingly cheerful cleric of Groetus whose philosophy is more along the lines of "We're all gonna die and be forgotten about, and eventually the Universe will too, so why get upset about it?! Enjoy your life AND your death!" would be fun to play, and if you roleplayed them as oblivious to the fact that people find their blithe nihilism creepy and upsetting, it'd side-step the anathema of spreading hope.

“It’s the end of the word as we know it, and I feel fine ….”

Other than mother vulture, I am pretty sure all of those are evil gods. And the only truly problematic part for mother vulture clerics is their...diet.

The rest of the details are just normal murder hoboing as a good or neutral cleric. You know, murder for quests, horde every item you find, not really add anything to the local agriculture industry.

Honestly, I think mother vulture might make a suitable Lamashtu replacement for a player goblin. everything on that list seems right up a goblin's alley.

I rather wish this “killing is murder’ bit would stop. All murder is killing. Not all killing is murder. They are not the same thing, they are different words with different meanings.

I’ve already more or less established the character. Vivacious gnome, returned background. And while I obviously wont apply any archetype until at least second or fourth level, I want to possibly work in the application flavor wise in the preceding play. I sort of have a list in mind, but as this would be my first second edition character for after we finish off our long and several times delayed first edition AP. (The finish will almost certainly be after the second remaster at this point, so I’m mainly collecting ideas.)

Yes, undead sorcerer is kinda baked in. The two that could have fit for the character as envisioned would have been that or oracle of bones … and for my first pf2 character I don’t want to deal with the curse management bit. It’s not to be an ‘undead minions’ sort but an undead hunting one.

The campaign will be very undead-y. Character as is was mistakenly involved in a cult, which tried to sacrifice her only it … didn’t take …So, any ideas anyone?

Arssanguinus wrote:

Once you’ve tried to stab me in my back, you don’t get to say oops my bad.

Indeed.

First rule of OGL-cide : do not miss.

Don’t pick a fight with someone who buys dice by the barrel.

Once you’ve tried to stab me in my back, you don’t get to say oops my bad.

Apparently the forces of Saruman saw the riders of Rohan coming down the hill at them …

I think they were caught off guard by the unified response, flanked, and sneak attacked.

In a thread on rpg.net, there's considerable skepticism as to whether the leak about the $30/month charge and the AI DMs is genuine—while the people who provided that information claimed to have sources, neither specified what their sources were or has proved reliable enough in the past to be fully trusted without evidence of their claims, and some people in the rpg.net thread think the claims in the leak are suspiciously similar to those in a "leak" five months ago that was proved to be a fake.

But if it is genuine, and if Wizards of the Coast genuinely plans to have an AI DM, yeah, that's something I have absolutely zero interest in. I can see an AI being good at running combats, sure, but to me combat is one of the least interesting parts of the game. I much more enjoy creative problem-solving and interaction with NPCs, and those are things that AI would be terrible at. Chatbots have come a very long way since Eliza, but they're still nowhere near good enough to substitute for a real GM. I suspect a game with an AI GM would be heavily focused on combat, and that's exactly the type of game I'm least interested in playing.

There's also the fact that I'm a GM a lot more often than I'm a player, and generally I enjoy GMing more than I enjoy playing. So that makes me even less interested in an AI DM. (Though AI players... hm. ;) ) But even setting that aside, as a player I would not want to play in a campaign with an AI GM. Maybe players who mostly enjoy combat and don't care so much about other aspects of role-playing games might feel differently.

If it isn’t… if there wasn’t at least a kernel of truth - why wouldn’t they just release a statement denying it?

I mean, yes, but that's honestly just business. For all that diehard free market proponents love to talk about the merits of competition, the reality is that competitions always have winners. Everyone works towards that monopoly in whatever way they can because it's the most efficient way to make money, and therefore the ultimate goal of any serious competitor. That's miserable for everyone else, ofc, hence anti-trust laws, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still the goal.

Especially for a publicly traded company that's beholden to shareholders who are themselves usually more interested in getting fat returns on their investments than on what the company stands for or its consumers. That's how we end up with the adversarial relationship between the management of Hasbro/WotC and the audience; the shareholders, and by extension upper management, want to separate the audience from as much money as they possibly can, whether the audience wants to part with it or not, in order to boost profit margins. That means killing competition, changing the business model from "ownership" to "rent-seeking," and forcing brand loyalty going forward by quashing 3pp and taking the majority of income on 3pp products by virtue of its licensing rules and larger economic scale.

It's actually a sensible move through that lens. However, to everyone but the corpo suits, it's utterly vile.

They aren’t trying to win by competing but by outlawing their competitors.

kyrt-ryder wrote:

I don't like the idea of any governing body having the right to decide who is or is not a bad actor. That's what the power of our wallets is for :P

And I’m not sure I like the idea of the power of wallets deciding who is or isn’t a bad actor. Sure, the cancellation pf DnD Beyond subscriptions could be seem as a “wallet-powered” exploit, but similarly I see bank-rolled bad actors are legion. It feels like “let the market decide” all over again. And over and over again, the market has decided in favor of investors, slavers, polluters and other assorted captains of industry.

And just as or more often those same things are pushed or bankrolled by governing bodies. If you give them the upper hand you lose control over where they put it.

Without posting the new license, any press release is just hot air.

“Mea culpa. Now will you please just look away for a moment…”

Tangenital Response to Tangential Rant: I mean, me, I looked at 3.5, I looked at Pathfinder 1 (with Rolemaster leaning over from the one-in-forp'nnies) and said "that's not complicated enough! I'mma make my own edition, with Brimoraks and Hook Horrors! Let's add it all together and steal some bits from 4E and 5E (since I saw the latter on Unexpectables!) Huzzah!"

...

I do not think I am anyone's target market anymore.

Oooh. I still have my role master for when I get a real desire for numbers

I get it, but I'd like ORC to be more focused on who we are and what we can create than what we want to happen to our enemies.

What will happen for our allies rather than to our enemies?

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

*I'm not sure I buy the "teen boys" theory in particular. Maybe if they have no understanding of the current demographics? But that seems unlikely. It's not being marketed as a boys-only game anymore. There's still gender bias, not nearly as centered as it once was.

I'm going by where I see the boxes placed at Target. They're placed toward the area of the endcap game shelves that corresponds with the "war" and "action" toys - your action figures, Nerf guns, licensed Lego sets, and Matchbox cars. The stuff that's classified as "boy toys" by the industry. They're not at the end of the game shelves that corresponds with the more domestic play styles, things like dolls and accessories (classified as "girl toys").

I’d have to say the judgment of stores like target of what the audience that buys it is not necessarily what I would go on

Il see if I can assemble that in a legible format.

Arssanguinus wrote:

I actually have adopted many of the deities.

Well, if you used mine, I'd love to hear how they fit into your campaign. I will probably enjoy hearing how you created your pantheon in any event, and how your players liked/used them, and I bet many contributors to this thread would.

Gotta look up which ones are you. I started as a core with the ones I made that I liked because I made them, then started working out, taking those connected by other people to those ones, then started filling niches, then started inserting ‘just plain cool’

I actually have adopted many of the deities.

Is there any such thing as a possible negative trait for a race/species to have that has not at some time been attached to some real world race or ethnic group? Seems like it’s a rabbit hole it’s really easy to go way too deep down.

I wont disagree that for some of these it's pretty common knowledge. Let people roll DC 10 untrained.

I've never met a kangaroo but I know it's got a pouch to carry kids. And that's something on the other side of the planet that isnt a localized unstoppable killing machine with a weakness to fire that should be pretty much talk of the town.

You also have access to the modern education system and the internet, which means the normal person’s ‘common knowledge’ base is vastly more expansive than it would be for those people.

Fair enough. It just seemed unnecessary to me. I can completely understand linking in supporting evidence and siting sources and such, but dragging someone through the mud just to prove your point doesn't sit right with me.

Also, I apologize for appearing insensitive or dismissive about doxing. I am sure it's a serious issue, but all I see is that Nazis can't hide anymore and I think that's pretty awesome.

Would you think it was awesome if it happened to you? No? Then don’t go wishing it on other people, even if you disagree with them.

If you want a better example of this kind of anachronism, the rapier was invented in the 1500s, several centuries after gunpowder weapons had become widespread in Europe. So any campaign that throws out guns in the name of historical accuracy should also throw out rapiers.

Usually it’s not “historical accuracy“ it’s thematic feel. False argument. There is nothing about the rapier that would have been off despite not existing yet. It isn’t remotely the same as adding firearms.

Also, a different type of bow is quite different from a different mechanism of damage entirely. Even if it was the same type of bow, it wouldn’t be the gotcha you seem to try to imply.

If you had a modern game and you allowed an Anachronistic firearm it wouldn’t also follow that you were unfair if you didn’t allow lasers too.

Well yes. Taking feats that change the rules will in fact change the rules.

And even then the phrase for you must be added so that +5 vorpal cookie sheets arent created.

Now you have me wanting a +5 vorpal cookie sheet…

oh, I don't know. I've done a lot of things in my gaming days, but then I have been doing this for... goodness... My current players recently pointed out how old their parents were when I started running RPGs... only one of them got into double digits. And one had to switch to how old his grand parents were...

sigh.

Yes, I have run campaigns with Evil parties. and with a mix of both. From a balance perspective, I've often found having an undead PC in the party to be no more unbalancing than having a high-powered customized PC... I know I have said this many times, but it really is mostly on the player. Give a "Evil Monster" to a good player, someone fun to have at the table and a joy to play with? and you have a good game. Give a Paladin to a "Richard" player, and you begin to see why Pallys are one of the most controversial classes at the table. It's not the PC, it's the Player. In this case, it's not the Alignment, it's the Player.

Just as/even more often the ‘problem’ with a paladin at the table lies with the behavior of the OTHER players.

Yeah. Similarly most of my characters at least have a core aspect of my personality somewhere in them. They may be quite different in a myriad of other ways, but:some part of their core will be me. Rime, my halfling witch, has at her core a complete non tolerance of harm to children and despises ‘bullies’ in al forms. Harishan my Vanara Druid believes in honoring all of his commitments, in family and has a burning dislike of involuntary servitude. Elsa my halfling bard was probably closes to my actual personality. But all of them at least in part are people I could “work with” even if I didn’t agree on everything.

Yqatuba wrote:

How about:

Dumbledore: CG level 20 wizard

Voldemort CE level 18 wizard lich

Pathfinder's system implies rather more personal magic power, and often less power at manipulating the world generally than fiction including the Harry Potter series. See: 'Gandalf was a 5th level wizard' for another example.

Gandalf was holding back from what he could almost certainly actually do.

I’d imagine with the heavy travel involved and ‘planets’ one could do something with reign of winter. I’d have to think on it.

Eh, backpacks are listed as 2gp and I just have never been able to get past the idea that anyone in anything resembling a medieval/renaissance society would pay gold for a simple backpack. Which makes trying to convert Pathfinder values into anything resembling real money just unworkable.

I think the best you could do is figure out what it cost to have a basic standard of living of some sort in both societies compare those two numbers and use that as the conversion rate other than that I don’t think you can get much more granular

I think the differences in economic priorities and values renders the comparison next to impossible. Items that were carefully hand crafted before are now cheaply mass produced. Items that never existed then are now commonplace and relatively cheap. The economies would be rather difficult to compare directly.

Yup. Have all the fun you want. It’s just not based on the rules set. Acting indignant is disingenuous.

Not one of those allows the homunculus to deliver a hex in substitution to the witch.

A magic item is not a class feature, so that is somewhat meaningless.

Granting evolutions is just that: granting evolutions. It’s a specific class ability with the specific effect of granting specific things to a specific creature, and as such as no further implications that exactly what it says it does.

And just speaking in a similar voice could be accomplished by ventriloquism. It still doesn’t give them the ability to use class features which don’t specifically say they can be used that way.

A familiar is an animal chosen by a spellcaster to aid him in his study of magic.

A homunculus is a miniature servant created by a spellcaster from his own blood. They are extensions of their creators.

The use of a single Audible Hex through an extension of your witch which has been given a voice, is not unreasonable. Nor is the use of command word triggered items.

Is it, however, actually supported by the rules whether you happen you believe it ‘reasonable’ or not? Signs say ‘not’.

The GM side of me leans towards “no, homunculus cant do ‘that’ unless it’s a familiar and a familiar could do that.