B.O.B.Johnson's page

I had a player that would routinely mentioned they didn't like how limiting PFS was. Then they ran their own homebrew game that was at first anything goes, then within a month their homebrew was CRB only - much more limited than PFS.

I don't know if it has been reported, but Shardra the Shaman pregen has 'lore keeper' in its statblock, but this is a typo. It should be 'lorekeeper' (no space) as it is a alternate dwarven racial trait that replaces greed from the ARG. So two things to fix really: remove the space, and add 'ARG' in superscript next to it to signify its source is the Advanced Race Guide.

Thought I throw my two cents in here:

I'm a VA for one of the several stores in the Phoenix Valley. I generally don't run a scenario twice, but that is only because I schedule what scenarios are ran at the store I'm in charge of, and if I haven't ran it yet, then most of my player base hasn't played it yet. I have found that I am GMing far more often than I get to play.

There are, however, times that I do run a scenario more than once. For instance, sometimes I GM something at another store to help out and to make sure the table goes off. Or for instance, I recently scheduled Shades of Ice parts 1 thru 3 at my store. I ran all 3 at a different store a couple years back when I first started GMing (and was not a VA). It'd be nice to get credit again - but it isn't going to prevent me running it my store so my playerbase has a chance to play it.

There is one time of year where I do consistently re-run scenarios: Phoenix Comicon. Our VC sets it up so other than the special, you are usually running the same scenario 2 or 3 times. First, you don't have to worry about prepping a different scenario each day. Second, most of the scenarios scheduled are primarily for attracting new players, meaning tier 1-2 and 1-5 scenarios. Yes we do schedule some higher level scenarios for our veterans, but that's only a small fraction of what we schedule.

Pros/Cons of this: You don't get multiple credit (other than multiple table credit), but it's easier this way in my opinion. Another con is that we might be losing out on some people volunteering for the con because they can't get GM credit more than once - it is offset a little in the fact that as long as you GM 3 sessions over the 4 day con, you get 2 full event passes to PCC.

Anyway, I'm in favor of unlimited limited GM credit. By that I mean, you can get a GM chronicle an unlimited number times, but it is limited in the boons, where you can own get a boon once via GM credit. Now that's per boon - meaning if a chronicle has something like 'Boon (Liberty's Edge)', 'Other Boon (The Exchange)', and 'Third General Boon any faction can earn', then you could GM it once and apply to a Liberty's Edge character, but if you GMed it again, you couldn't get the Liberty's Edge boon, but you could get the Exchange boon.

You could take this a step further and limit it to also unique items that are on chronicles, but limit it to when the item is purchased. For example, if I run a scenario and apply it to my -1, and the chronicle has a unique item, and then I run it again on my -2, and I buy the unique item on my -2, then I need to cross off the item on my -1 chronicle as well.

Another limit past the unique items could also be Limit X items. For instance, a scenario I recently got to play had some +1 holy arrows (Limit 3 or 4 - I'd have to look at the Chronicle to be sure). Make items like that be global GM Limit X. Meaning it doesn't matter how many times I've GMed, I can only buy 4x +1 holy arrows across all characters that have GM credit for that scenario (and I can buy an additional 4x +1 holy arrows on the character that actually played the scenario).

Of course this would rely on the honor system as I don't see a way to really enforce that. Sorry if I'm rambling. Just my 2 cents on it.

Apparently you updated the PRD recently (which is great!), however you decided to altered URLs of the pages (which is fine), but you didn't do proper redirects. For instance, I used to frequent the monster creation page to look up XP based on CR (as I don't have the table memorized), and I visit it so often, all I have to do is type in 'mo' in my browser address bar and it's one of the websites listed.

The original address was http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/monsterCreation.html, but the new address is http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary/monsterCreation.html#appendix-1 -monster-creation.

If I go to the original address I get a dead page. Proper design dictates that I should have been auto-redirected to the new page address. Also by not doing redirects, you search engine rankings on pages is all messed up now. For instance, if I search for 'paizo monster creation', the top result in Google is the old web page. If you do proper redirects, not only do you not lose your search engine rankings, but the search engines will pick up on the address being changed and start pointing to the new address automatically.

Depending on how you structured the page naming convention, you can get away with doing wildcard redirects. For instance, if all of your pages ins the 'monsters' folder have been redirected to the 'bestiary' folder, you can do a redirect for that entire folder.

Terquem wrote:

So wait a minute. Are some of you saying that if the DC is, say, 17, and your character ha a +4 on the roll, AND you decide those odds are not to your liking, you will invest in a character improvement that raises your modifier by +2, and when you have done that you fully expect that from that point on the DC should never increase, making the investment you made worth while?

Sort of. The DC for the same task should never increase just to match then new abilities of the character. Also, the DC for the average lock in the town should not suddenly become higher just to spite the character. Sure DCs should be higher if the character goes after bigger challenges, but the world should not randomly get harder just because the character got better.

Yeah I'm going to have to disagree with that. If a town is having routine break-ins, the towns people aren't going to be like 'oh well' and keep using the same mundane locks - they're going to invest in better and better locks, traps, security, and neighborhood watches and so on.

is there any point to the rest of the party in that situation? When save or suck is automatic. Is there any point to having a DM? Why not just go read the AP book and act it out in your head?

Exactly! When I GM I am there to have fun just as much as the players - I view it as though I'm a player too (even though I'm running the game). While I may be running the monsters I'm doing this not only so the players have fun, but so I can have some fun too. I'm also not their to beat the players - I'm there to weave a fun story.

If you regulate the story down to save or suck I'm not going to run for you, because what kind of story is that?

I've also played PFS tables with this one player who ONLY built save or suck characters - and basically the sessions I played with him basically went like this: if I beat him in initiative order, YAY! I GET TO DO SOMETHING! Otherwise it was: oh its his turn, combats over, lets move on. After a couple sessions like that (and with him playing different characters) I would just wait and see what he signed up to play, and if the other scenario was something I was eligible to play, I'd play that - otherwise I wouldn't play.

I though that if there was a consequence to failure then you were not permitted, by the rules, to take 10 or 20, on a Disable Device Skill Check.

Taking 20: When you have plenty of time, you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, if you roll a d20 enough times, eventually you will get a 20. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.

Yes, but skill checks are not auto-failures. Meaning if you skill bonus is so high that even with a nat 1 you beat the trap perception DC or disable device, you find it and disable it.

B.O.B.Johnson wrote:

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

It's not useless at high levels. As I said above - it's used like this:

Level 16 martial wields a greatsword. He also has defending armor spikes. Whenever he makes a full-attack, he makes the 1st 3 with his greatsword & makes the 4th attack with his armor spikes, shifting their + bonus to AC. Will that 4th attack suck? Of course! But it only sucks a bit more than it would with the greatsword at -15 anyway.

It has the secondary benefit of having enchanted armor spikes - which normally wouldn't be worth purchasing at all as they're too niche.

Would that even work? Doesn't that count as two-weapon fighting? Can you two-weapon fight with a two-handed weapon? I'm not saying it can't work - I'm just curious if it can.

It's not Two Weapon Fighting. You can freely switch between weapons or attack with multiple weapons or whatever so long as you aren't actually getting any extra attacks with it. Attacking 3 times with a greatsword and once with spikes when you have 4 attacks is kosher. Attacking 4 times with the greatsword and 3 times with the spikes using greater TWF is not.

See this FAQ.

Ah thanks for the info. Like I said I was just curious how that worked. :)

Yeah, but very little is useless at high levels. +6 weapons are expensive, and for the vast majority of the game defending is basically pointless, then becomes only moderately useful to super rich characters at very high levels.

I don't know about that - I ran a scenario a couple weeks back and a player's whole build was based on absorbing attacks from the enemies - and he had an insane AC - he could careless about hitting well as long as he protected his allies.

He was complaining about some of the more intelligent enemies effectively ignoring him when they couldn't hit him. I probably shouldn't have pointed out to him that he should be using something like the Antagonize feat - I'm sure the next I run something for his character he will show up with it.

I know it might be cheesy (and I'm not 100% it works this way), but the FAQ does say you have to make an 'attack roll' - it doesn't say what the target has to be.

So scenario: I move my base speed towards the archers, I then target the ground in front of me: die ground! die! - I roll to attack, I now have the AC bonus. Now the one questionable thing is what is the ground made of along with my weapon? Cause I could damage my weapon like that.

It also means you spent 8000 gold and used an interstellar telescope to pass a perception check.

I've never bought one. Never even seen one before it was linked in this thread. I don't really see it being useful in PFS, but I could see it useful in a home game depending on the campaign.

Or there is the case of the catapult argument above. At 2k ft, the perception DC is DC 200. The argument though is that it is being flung at a castle or something rather. If I was playing in a home game and I owned my own castle I'd definitely invest in several telescopes in key places (maybe not the 8k gold one) - such as 4 of the 2k gold ones (one in each of the 4 corners of the castle wall - manned of course by sentries on watch) and maybe the 4k gold one in the tallest tower with a way to make it a 360 degree view.

Even with the cheapest one (that is 2k gold), it turns it into a DC 18 (DC 200 / 10x - (+2 mod) = DC 18) - or the 4k gold one turns it into a DC 0 (DC 200 / 50x - (+4) = DC 0). That 4k gold telescope could be far cheaper than what ever damage & repairs I would need to make to my castle from letting a catapult continually beat down on me. Even the 8k gold telescope could potentially be cheaper than a destroyed castle.

hiiamtom wrote:

Has anyone brought up these items yet?

So you get a +6 to the check, and it's only a -19633152 penalty.

Not really, since those don't affect the basic math. Now I need only roll a 30 instead of a 65 to see the batter from the nosebleed seats.....

Actually if you read the description, it wasn't a straight +6 modifier. It also divided the DC by it's magnification. The table for magnification was much further away from the item's description than it should be, but here is the available telescopes:

Telescope (x10 magnification/+2)
Telescope (x50 magnification/+4)
Telescope (x250 magnification/+6)

So the +6 telescope, divides the DC by 250. Even with a DC of 65 (which I am assuming is 650'?) and just using the 10x telescope, that's a DC 6 or 7 (depending on whether the penalty should round up or down) and a +2 on Perception check - so in reality, you'd a roll of 4 or better (as long as you don't have a negative on your Perception skill).

The 50x make the DC so low that you'd need no skill ranks in Perception and a Wisdom score of 3 or lower to even fail - and that'd require a Nat 1 plus rounding the DC up (65 / 50 = 1.3 = DC 2 - +4 modifier = DC -2 vs Nat 1 - 4 Wis Mod = -3 perception).

The 250x mag can't even fail that DC 65 unless you had a Wisdom score below 0 which means you would be incapable of rational thought and unconscious, in which case it wouldn't matter.

I think the key is actually the very beginning description of the Perception skill: Your senses allow you to notice fine details and alert you to danger.

I don't know about you, but I can't see any fine details on the sun by staring at it directly. I can see fine detail by looking at photographs that were taking of the sun using special equipment...

If we use our sun as the model, the perception check is DC 49,080,666,095 (49 billion).

Size of objects get a -4 to stealth every size category they go up. I didn't do any kind of fancy formula, and even though there is an extra 5' jump from Gargantuan to Colossal, I just did a simple radius divided by 5' = a size category of 456,917,471.

Now the sun is surrounded by darkness (space) - so from darkness to dim light, lets say we give the sun a -16 (4 *4) stealth for every size category above medium. Next step is from dim light to normal light, so another *4 modifier to stealth so -64 (4 ^ 3) stealth each size. The last step is from normal light to bright light, another *4 modifier on top of all that, so -256 (4 ^ 4) modifier per size category.

Now let's go back a step: because of our atmosphere, the sun while it is bright light, it is surrounded by normal light in our sky, so let's halve, that final modifier of -256 to -128.

Multiply that by it's size category and we are left with a -58,485,436,288 stealth modifier. Add the DC modified by distance to that, and we have a DC of -9,404,770,193 to notice the sun. Of course that is just to notice the sun.

Without the proper equipment (eye protection + powerful telescope) let's just say we double the DC of the sun to see finer details (not to just notice a giant floating ball of fire) that's a DC 39,675,895,902 to see/notice the finer details of the sun.

So while we can easily notice the sun's presence with our perception, we'll go blind long before being able to see any fine details of the sun.

Course, other than the size and distance of our sun, all the other numbers were just fuzzy math logic I made up. So yeah...

Yeah I'm playing Shaggy, Alchemist, with the construct rider archetype (which of course that is the Mystery Machine). I also took whatever Alchemist archetype (can't remember off the top of my head) that allows me to share my mutagen at half strength with allies (that's the Scooby Snacks).

I'm using the Shaggy minifigure and Mystery Machine minifigure from the new Lego dimensions game - it has a spot directly on top where I can have Shaggy sit when he's 'mounted'. (http://cache.lego.com/r/www/r/dimensions/-/media/franchises/dimensions/pro ducts/product_details/carousel_images/03_team_packs/scoobyshaggy/04_ld_pd_t eampacks_carousel01_scooby_shaggy.jpg?l.r2=-1292724342)

In my downloads, in the list of available downloads it always lists 'Date Last Downloaded' (column A) and 'Date Download Last Updated' (column B).

It would be nice:
if (column A != never) and (column A < column B) then
that row is highlighted in a special color.

For instance, I was going through my downloads today and noticed that I had downloaded the Advanced Class Guide in August 2014 (column A) and the download had been updated by Paizo on September 30th, 2015 (column B).

Column A did not equal 'never' and column A's value was less than column B's value. Therefore, I needed to download a new version of the Advanced Class Guide.

Basically it's just so when I have an out-dated download it is easily noticeable (as I don't always notice the date mismatch).

In theory it shouldn't take too much code to do this - you are already retrieving the date I downloaded and the date the product was updated, it should be a simple matter to switch row styles based on these 2 values.