I've finally found some people locally to play PFRPG with and got curious about organized play. I downloaded all the books and was making a character until I hit the faction area. Personally, I don't like any of the factions but more than that I dont want to be a part of any faction(And the character I was working on wouldn't want to be either).
I stumbled across this thread and well after checking the responses I don't think i will be joining the society simply because of it.
Lifetime loyalty to some group? Just not my (or the fun character idea I had thought up) sense of style or play which seems sad. I think the factions business is limiting.
Such as spending a feat and a power to gain something that it s a little better than a power of its current level.
Great Cleave | Fighter Attack 3
You continue the momentum of your cleave attack, striking at all around you. Encounter * Martial, Weapon Standard Action | Melee weapon Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 2[W] + Strength modifier damage, and all enemies adjacent
to you takes damage equal to your Strength modifier.
Special: The target of this power must been successfully struck by the Cleave at-will power in the previous round
After playing 4e for a while I think that there is certaintly some room for powers that stack on stop of one another make it them slightly more powerful.
These would be encounter or daily powers that would require the successful use of another power to be used. These Combo powers could be created by either a single character or multiple ones (such as Vivi and Steiner's Sword Magic from FF9)
This is a very interesting question. It would entirely depend on how war like his church is.
In Eberron did the Paladin that slew the shifters, just because they might be tainted? If it wasn't for the loose alignment system in place on that world I would say yes.
The Alignment system is more loose in the terms that clerics who turn evil can still get powers from a good god. You can have a Lawful Good Cleric of the Traveler for example.
pres man wrote:
The fact that you are losing your divine favor might be an indication that what you believe is "noble and just" is in fact not. That you are placing your personal ideas above that of the divine and celestial views. It could be arrogance to assume that you know better than the power(s) that give you those divine favors.
To clarify, I meant a paladins code of ethics as handed down by the deity. Different deities require different things from their paladins. So if I was a Paladin of say Kelemvor I would probably value the destruction of undead more than a Paladin of Sune. If a BBE Undead was about to destroy a city (And I was the aforementioned Paladin of Kelemvor) and the only way to destroy it was to work with a evil character I think I would choose the destruction of the greater evil over that of the lesser even if I lost my powers. Even Luke worked with Anakin to destroy Palpatine.
This is a very interesting question. It would entirely depend on how war like his church is.
In Eberron did the Paladin that slew the shifters, just because they might be tainted? If it wasn't for the loose alignment system in place on that world I would say yes.
Here is another interesting perspective to take on this; If I were the paladin, and by using the evil person to escape, I knew that I would lose my divine favor as the price I still might do it. If the cause were noble and just (such as saving innocents or the world etc) and by doing so I kept to the morales of my deity and personal code of ethics I think that would be more important. I would make that sacrifice for the greater good.
This is one reason why I like the idea of renaming the Paladin class to that of Exemplars. They are the epitome of the deities values walking the physical plane. They are the examples the the people can look up too and cherish. This is also why I have opened my games to paladins of all alignments.
What is this year's "Halloween Free PDF Download" going to be?
A Logue one shot?
Well, free it ain't, but Mysteries is only $2.50...that's cheaper than a froo-froo coffee at Starf##&s. :-)
I havent run it, but we will be shortly. From what I have read, you should give up the fru fru coffee for a day ( or a couple) and indulge in this instead.
I'd recommend running the Tale of the Seabear short one-shot adventure from the Mysteries of the Razor Sea PDF as well. A terrifying survival-horror ghost ship adventure designed with maximum horror in mind.
For 2.50? gee I don't know. :)
Actually, I admire your works. And I also admire the fact that here you are adding to the thread and selling your works with a subtle brazenness that I just cant help but to click add to cart and give my money to you.
Ha! I love the melting necklace myself...so sexy. This is a piece by Cynthia Sheppard, fast becoming my new favorite artist. She's doing a lot of work for Razor Coast and its all stunning.
It absolutely is. My wife (a native american firefighter) is now begging me to coerce the artist into sell her prints of pele!
So I am looking to subject my players to a lot of horror (YEAH!) over the next 6 weeks for about 12 two hours sessions.
You could DM naked
I think that wouldn't work on anyone since we will be playing via maptools. I guess I could have them map over a token and see goatse or tub girl though.
Dont open the spoiler unless you like horrific descriptions(IE Adult content)
Spoiler:
One of the players is going to be a paladin. I thought I would have him run across a humanoid forcing himself on a woman who was skinned alive.
I think the moral dilemna would really challenge them.
In Kansas City, living on opposite ends can mean living in two different states :)
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! The two households in question are in the western outskirts of Kansas City, KS and near the northern end of Grandview, MO, respectively.
Azigen wrote:
I agree. With the table formatting you can even color code your powers for At-will, Encounter, Daily and Ritual with just a little html. We even color code saves, damage, healing, and other things to be easier.
I haven't gotten that far into learning the system yet. In fact, my DM is having to set up my power macros for me. Heck, just this last Tuesday, I learned that you can type out a text message after a roll command. For instance:
/roll 1d20+6 vs AC on the Goblin Skullcleaver.
could possibly yield...
<<1d20+6 = 12 + 6 = 18>> vs AC on the Goblin Skullcleaver.
I'd've figured the extraneous text after the command would cause an error, not add flavor to the output.
Azigen wrote:
Forum avatars also make great tokens. We use vent and audacity to record our sessions as well.
I never thought of using forum avatars. That's a good idea. I'd simply gotten used to using TokenTool and extracting tokens from my favorite DeviantArt.com artwork.
We're still experimenting with voice. Admittedly, there's some technical difficulty at the DM's end that makes him either too soft to hear or too staticky to understand. We've tried Skype and Vent so far and neither panned out well. We're beginning to think we're better off without voice.
Here is a macro for you then. Just modify the color, and the type of power. have your DM add these properties to the Token Properties tab.
Spoiler:
<table border="0">
<tr bgcolor="red">
<table width="100%">
<tr>
<td style="padding:0px 5px;">
<span style="color:white"><b>{token.name} uses an encounter power </b></font>
</td>
<td style="padding:0px 5px;" align=right>
<span style="color:white">{token.name} uses {EncounterPower1Name}</font>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
{token.name} uses {EncounterPower1Name}<br>
{EncounterPower1Desc} <br>
{token.name} rolls to hit ([E: 1d20+EncounterPower1hit])vs {EncounterPower1Defense}<br>
and does ([EncounterPower1Dmg]) damage if successful!
</td>
</tr>
</table>
As far as vent goes, have people adjust their microphones. And it may be worth while to spend some time optimizing this.
Go with RPtools! Its free. And it works on Linux Mac and PC
That's what my 4E group is using right now. We're all local friends, but since getting to one another's house has become problematic (two households literally live at two opposite corners of the Kansas City metro area), we decided to give this a shot.
Not only are we able to game productively on a weeknight, but we tend to get a lot farther in a session than in our Saturday night 3.5E get-together. I think the online format encourages us to focus more on the game and less on bragging to each other about our World of Warcraft or Everquest characters.
In Kansas City, living on opposite ends can mean living in two different states :)
I agree. With the table formatting you can even color code your powers for At-will, Encounter, Daily and Ritual with just a little html. We even color code saves, damage, healing, and other things to be easier.
Forum avatars also make great tokens. We use vent and audacity to record our sessions as well.
I have been thinking about buying a virtual gaming "table" program, since hearing about 4ed. Most of my friends are not interested in 4ed and therefore are not interested in buying into DDI and paying a monthly subscription. Mainly because we continue to play 3.5ed for our games. However, I have about a half-dozen friends and former players who have been trying to get me to play a game online using a virtual game table. However, we are trying to make a decision between the Battleground RPG table and Fantasyground virtual table.
My question is...has anyone tried these two programs? If so which is better or worst? Does anyone know of another program that emulates these two?
Thanks to everyone in advance!
Go with RPtools! Its free. And it works on Linux Mac and PC
I have created a chargen spreadsheet, which at the moment is up-to-date for Pathfinder Alpha 3. I'm working on implementing the changes for Beta, but in the meantime, you could see if this will help you at all:
http://chargen.motime.com/
While not exactly what I was looking for this does help! Thank you.
Most of you know me as a stalwart 4e supporter. Recently, I have been invited by my original gaming group(I played with these people since I was 8) to come play and online game with the "guys" since we all live in different states. We took a vote and we decided to play 3.5 edition rules.
I mentioned Pathfinder (as I like paizo and their products) and they asked for the differences. I know with software there tends to be something that points out the key changes like ( Dwarves get XX instead of XX).
Is there anything similar to this for PFRPG? If there is it would save my group and I the time of reading everything just to see if we want to play it or not.
I second the no lichdom. Iosolde was raised from the dead by her goddess (its easier at epic levels now to explain this). She could be an Exarch depending on the power level of of Auril in 4e FR. Second, make it more titanic than Fire vs Ice. Perhaps the Efreet have allies that can be persuaded away from them.
I had a very interesting and fantastic dream last night. The story was about a dwarf and his quest for vengeance against an Evil King. The Evil King was about to undergo some form of ritual by some dark priests to become even more unstoppable and powerful and bend the world to his might.
It was decided that the dwarf and his group of adventurers would infiltrate the Evil King's caslte and try to stop him. During that process the wizard made it to the King during the beginning of the cermony ( some type of dance where we all got seperated) and engaged in a titanic magical battle with his former master. He ended up being blasted onto this table destroying it. As he lay their dying, my dwarf grabbed an empty beer stein and used some power on it to fill the stien with a healing liquid. The only dialogue from the night was "Drink this Better Beer, and live to join the fight with us again".
So for fun, how would you create this power?
Spoiler:
Here is the list of characters for those interested:
Dwarf - Clan killed due to opposition of Evil King. Swore a grudge against the king and his minions. Most similar to an artificer in D&D terms. almost an artificer/warlord.
Human Wizard - Apprentice of the Evil King's Court wizard but switches to the side of good after having his sister killed. He was our guide through the castle during the ceremony.
Human Thief/Ranger - Legendary scout who was noted for helping those in need. He escaped from the Evil King's castle and was our key to getting inside.
Eladrin Knight - who belonged to the church that opposed those who were to perform the ritual on the Evil king. More of a Paladin/Cleric
Bastien- Son of a demi-god of justice, Bastien was a honorable fighter known for his prowess with any weapon. Not sure what race he was if any definable in D&D terms.
Coran - An assassin we hired for extra muscle. He was a Thief/Magic User who could inscribe magic works onto shuriken and other weapons
I'm really confused as to why they can't figure out what was done right with Red Hand Of Doom. I'm given to understand that Red Hand of Doom was a stunningly good module and I expect it had good back ground material - why not use that material as the foundation? It just makes no sense.
I ran RHOD as a Horror Module. It was incredibly fun for me, but a bit hard on the pc's. It was better if the pc's were optimized for the module such as a dwarven ranger with favored enemies selected correctly.
That being said we all had fun playing it and were eager to peak at this AP.
I need a map to use for a dungeon below an old Abbey. I dont really have the time to make one myself. Any interesting ones out there that could be of use?
The Abbey above ground is in ruins (see Whitby Abbey which was my inspiration) and all that really remains is the dungeons below. Clerics of Ioun were starting to return and worship at the abbey and explore it when Cultists of some demon or evil god (still have to decide that bit) arrived, killed the clerics and started exploring themselves. They are looking for something in the dungeons below.
Thanks for the help.
Use the graveyard map from Keep on the Shadowfell for the outside.
The character art is nice. I could see someone using the female tiefling, the Dragonborn, the smith, and the gladiator for characters or npcs
WotC definitely has a good art department - makes me mad when they regurgitate it, but whatever ...
I did think the dwarven female smith ... on page 2 I think ... looked a little too manly in the face, but other than that everything tends to match a style and form I like. WoC has definitely gotten better - I have a handful of L5R cards that shows he used to have a problem with proportions, but I've always liked his work regardless.
To me this is not an AP but just some generic adventures strung together.
I am crossing my fingers that Wotc will roll to attack our nose hairs with a spring loaded surprise badger that will encourage the continuity of this AP.
I want this to have the same feel of Red hand of doom.
(1) During the start of one's turn, is there a fixed order in which ongoing effects must be applied? For example, if I have 2 hit points, have regeneration 5, and am taking 5 ongoing fire damage, must I take the damage before I can regenerate?
Use the initiative modifier. Someone who hasa higher init modifier would be technically faster.
Good point about the pronouns. I went back and read the excerpt aloud and it was quite clear I need to tweak that part of it (and I found other wording I didn't like as well).
I think I'll just leave the fiction separate, and if anyone wants to see it after downloading the adventure, they'll have that option. People who only want the adventure will be able to download only that.
I am posting this message here because I am working on a 4E adventure and I wanted to get feedback from the 4E crowd.
I'm contemplating putting a piece of short fiction at the end of the adventure. It is related to the storyline of the adventure, of course. It won't add much to the download size of the adventure, but it will add pages for anyone printing it out.
So what's the general consensus? Do you like fiction along with an adventure, or it is more trouble than it's worth? Clearly, if the fiction sucks, then it won't be worth it...
...so to that end I was hoping someone with an eye for this sort of thing might look at the opening (a battle scene; small PDF linked below) and give me their thoughts. I appreciate any honest feedback, good or bad. You won't hurt my feelings:
You can always tell the printer which pages not to print out. I will review this tomorrow. Fiction adds fluff as long as it doesn't straight jacket the pcs.
After looking over the article, that is a weird statement to someone like me, especially when most of the friends I grew up playing with were definitely not left-leaning...and I'm sure they still are not.
The link to the article about the apology is kind of funny...
Mr. Goldfarb wrote:
If my comments caused any harm or hurt to the hard working Americans who play Dungeons & Dragons, I apologize. This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American.
--Michael Goldfarb
It's amazing to me that he got enough heat to apologize to D&D players
Wow. As a gamer who opposes most every one of Obama's views, I find the unecessary reference to D&D in that rant very insulting.
I am prior military and my wife is a reservist and A DOD firefighter. Shes done a stint in Kuwait for Operation Iraqi freedom. We both find it insulting.
The basic idea was that 'points of light' described a location that could drop off the map and function without an active communication link to some other community.
What i was wondering was how you were going with applying that to your own Campaign?
I am using the elements as described in the in core 4th edition books and making them my own.
The players started in the Nentir Vale for the H series of adventures. Those things common like Nerath, Arkhosia and the tiefling empire are all incorporated in my own world.
For instance, the blighted land where the tiefling empire used to be is known as the Last Lands now.
Here is the opener from the Players handout.
100 years ago the last empire fell. Nerath is no more. With the fall of the Golden Empire, the world has descended into a cold, harsh, and bitter twilight. Now, one hundred years later, hardly anything remains from the glory of the former empire but its crumbling ruins.
The world is indeed a harsh one. People starve. Famine and Disease are rampant. Petty city states war blindly with one another for resources. The enlightenment and education brought about by the Empire has all but faded. What time do people have for such pursuits when they must survive?
All hope is not lost. There are those that would carry that light out from their hearts and into the world once more. They stand tall like points of light before the oncoming darkness, ready to return it to whence it came.
Not to deviate my own thread, but I kind of think two mirror worlds are a little bit silly, although I like the Silent Hillesque style of play that you could incorporate into a horror campaign.
The Great Wheel Cosmology design featured multiple mirror worlds as well. The Plane of Shadows was one of them.
The current explanation works well for me right now as it stands.
Given the new concept that demons are corrupted elementals, and just want to destroy things for the sake of it, why is one of the major deities saddled with destruction as a major part of his portfolio? Aren't the new gods supposed to be the ones who brought order to the universe? Or did Gruumsh become addicted to destruction during the war with the primordials (sort of a let he who fights monsters beware lest he become a monster himself kind of thing?) Or is there more to this?
Thoughts?
"When you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss stares back into you"
It is very possible that Gruumsh is a these thoughts given shape/form/manifestation. Because so many people feel it on such a deep level it was given form.
Spoiler:
or maybe he just got hit with the backwash of The Elder Elemental Eye's stuff.
However here are some relevant facts I've gleaned:
At GenCon WoTC sold out multiple times on the Forgotten Realms CS and some core books (may have just been the PHB, I can't remember).
Isn't that rather like saying "John Deere sold out of their newest tractor at the Farmers' Convention! That means everyone loves John Deere!" My point: if they HADN'T sold out, THAT would have been news. Selling out of the newest offering by the biggest company on the block at one of the biggest RPG conventions isn't news; it's expected.
I think what he is saying is that Captain Hammer has foiled Dr. Horrible's attempt at defeating the status quo.
I got to have the cave troll pick up my players and beat them about the head with one another. Whats not fun about that? ( I also got to watch the look on their faces)
But what about that encounter was specifically 4th edition or what part of that encounter was impossible to achieve with prior editions? I'm trying to get at the exact bit of that memorable encounter that was specifically fun because it was 4th edition.
Nothing in the encounter is impossible in the prior editions. However, the Trolls ability makes it easier for him to do what he designed to do. It really shows off the differences in grab vs grapple.
Go ask your DM to set your party up agianst the Cave Troll from the new adventure in Dungeon (Scaled of War 2) . I have never had so much fun playing a monster. To boot, my players had fun with it even though they got beat up pretty badly.
I am the DM. I checked out the encounter, but I can't see anything out of the pale about it. What made it fun for you?
I got to have the cave troll pick up my players and beat them about the head with one another. Whats not fun about that? ( I also got to watch the look on their faces)
I think 4th edition has grown from 1st edition. This is a reminder of where we have been, not a straight jacket to keep us their.
In ways I can see your point. It's reminiscent of 1e while being its own beast. However, in practice I haven't yet seen the product for 4e that really sold me on its wonderfulness yet. To be fair I've only played Keep on the Shadowfell and 3 of those gameday modules, but none of them have done much to make me fall in love with the ruleset or believe it to be as useful as 3.x is to me. I'm currently designing my own oneshot, so that may change my mind after it's all said and done. I'll let you know. ;)
Go ask your DM to set your party up agianst the Cave Troll from the new adventure in Dungeon (Scaled of War 2) . I have never had so much fun playing a monster. To boot, my players had fun with it even though they got beat up pretty badly.
Anytime a DM can really push the players hard while they are laughing about it is a good thing.
Also did you use pregenned or your own character ?
Points of light takes D&D back to its roots. Blackmoor, City State of the Invincible Overlord, Tegel Manor, and even Greyhawk fit the description.
It does, and that's great. Roots are fine, but I've grown since 1e and I need my D&D to grow, too. I want my system to be able to encompass multitudes, like Walt Whitman...
I think 4th edition has grown from 1st edition. This is a reminder of where we have been, not a straight jacket to keep us their.
