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Only adventures written for Pathfinder rules are included in the Adventure Finder (see the heading "All of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game adventures from Paizo Publishing and over a hundred third-party publishers"), which means all the old 3.5 ones aren't included.*

I disagree about AP volumes; people putting together campaigns by stringing together modules can use the separate parts. Several (though admittedly not all) AP volumes make excellent stand-alone adventures.

** spoiler omitted **

Whilst I agree about "several (though admittedly not all)", it would be very difficult to know this ahead of time if a particular AP module would be fine on its own. As for excluding some of your back catalogue because they weren't written for your current ruleset, that just strikes me as odd. You can't really claim that your ruleset is backwards compatible if you exclude your back catalogue for that reason.

Perhaps a filter to include or exclude APs and PFS scenarios from your lists? That would help all comers.

Either I'm doing something wrong or not everything is in the Adventure Finder. I half expect third party products to be missing, but not Paizo ones. As an example. D4 Hungry are the Dead cannot be found either by region (Andoran) or by level (6th). I've failed to find others as well, so wondering if there's a gap or some products aren't loaded for some reason. It's an excellent tool, make no mistake, but finding gaps lowers my confidence in it.

Whilst on the same topic I'm not sure having the Adventure Paths in the finder is helpful. I doubt many people would jump into an AP part way through.

So he did! :)

And it's a wrap, people! When does Hitler arrive?

Kerney wrote:

captain yesterday wrote:

Kerney wrote:

Can we please close this thread? All sides have expressed their opinions and other than arguments about specific cases, we're seeing the same arguments and a repeated non agreement to disagree which can be repeated ad finitum.

you know if they close it down, a new thread with a slightly different title about the same subject is going to spring up an hour later, with all the same arguments etc.:)

Maybe we could at least get a cool new thread name!

More seriously, as a male 40 something who remembers chain mail bikinis and lingerie witches, I could easily be saying something like "could these hyper politically correct whiners please shut up. Haven't we made a good faith effort to make room?"

On the other hand, a thirty something female who has been harassed a few times at the table might have a different perspective.

It's a good idea for both sides to remember this.

No. Those are not equivalent.

I know you probably didn't intend it that way, but as it reads, your first statement implies that this hobby somehow belongs to you because you're male, and that you're doing us some sort of favor by allowing us to participate in your hobby. It doesn't belong solely to you and people like you, and you don't get to say, well, we'll be a little less hostile and a little less objectifying and now shut up and be glad you got that much, you interlopers.

I am not an interloper, a guest, a foreigner, to the Land of RPGs because I am a woman. Neither are non-straight people, people of color, or anyone else.

Your second statement -- which, incidentally, is me -- is someone presumably 100% justifiably upset about her right to participate in her hobby in peace being infringed.

So yeah, the way you framed it there? Those two sides aren't equally valid.

I don't normally get involved in back and forth banter, but he didn't say they were equivalent. They're obviously not, to me at least. We're on a slippery slope when we start to put words into other people's mouths.

Whilst I think this is a topic very worthy of debate, I too vote for it to be closed; too many passions are being stoked.

A Yorkshireman claimed that England didn't have regional accents/dialects that are difficult for people from other regions to understand?

Huh?

Yeah, I was taken aback as well. I think it came from the fact that as a native speaker it didn't feel like a dialect and, in fairness, we speak more about accents than dialects.

In reply to the OP (I can just about remember it!)...

Most of our current stock of monsters we have inherited from ancient tales, legend and mythology; and these were based on luring foolish travellers to their doom. No-one sensible would wander into a lair out of choice, unless there was an incentive - be it a compulsion, seduction, enchantment or a promise of reward. A lot of this would be sexual in nature, it is easy to understand as a concept and translates across languages and cultures. Most of these lures would be female because, at the time, women were not empowered and the concept of a male using a seductive lure would be a difficult concept to grasp.

Fast forward a few centuries and millennia and we have invented new monsters, lures and myths - but used the existing ones as templates. It's not so much as enforcing a stereotype as falling into the trap of re-using old tropes.

In the end though we like to think of ourselves as intelligent and enlightened, and should always try to act as such. It's a difficult concept to think differently, which is why it is used sparingly, but that doesn't mean ought not to try. Something Paizo does more often than most.

Please note that I am only talking about the monsters and why more of them are female and seductive in nature; the role of NPCs is entirely within our control and we need to be more intelligent about their use.

see wrote:

The 8th Dwarf wrote:

Not every British person has escaped from a PG Woodhouse novel "pip pip old chap" or from East London "right you are gov, we best get this sorted before it goes all pear shaped".

Of course not. Some British people are Scottish or Welsh. It's just all the English who speak those two ways. (Well, except in Cornwall, where the English pretend to be Welsh.)

I would like to see you say that to a Scouser, Geordie, Yorkshireman, or somebody from Essex. ;-)

My family is from Yorkshire and my brother speaks fluent Italian (which is useful as he married one!). He used to regale me with tales of the fact that Italy is scattered with regional dialects and someone from one region would find it difficult to understand someone from another. He then proceeded to say that we don't have anything like it in this country. I disagreed and, in front of his Italian wife (who speaks English), proceeded to utter complete phrases in Yorkshire, to which she said "What on Earth was that?". :)

Language, and dialect, is great, and I'm glad the media are beginning to drift away from this "English like what is spoken proper" nonsense.

Written: "This page intentionally left blank."

For me, the whole problem is nobody really understands the target audience, which what this thread says to me - and that's a problem in itself if even we can't agree.

What do I need to play? Even if you just say "Core Rulebook", there then proceeds to be a long series of "then what is this for?", "you don't need it, but..." for each product in the list.

I love Pathfinder and it's my go to system for myself and my players, but I do worry about the number of books coming out with elements that cross over into each other's territories. That's what hurt 3.5e in the end and I'd rather not have Pathfinder fall into the same trap.

Me, I'm a fan of MMOs. I'm a big fan of PvE and usually solo. I've tried plenty of MMOs - Lineage II, LotRO, DDO, EVE, WoW, EQ and others. I've dipped my toe into PvP a number of times and each time had it burned.

That said, I can see its merit. As long as it's clearly marked and I can avoid it, then I only have myself to blame if I venture into it unprepared. That's probably the key - "unprepared".

The biggest danger is one expressed elsewhere - when a single guild, clan, whatever, gets "too big". In other words they "own" an area, possibly even most of the zone, and your only option is to join it or die. This works in EVE, but it would be the death knell for PFO. We don't want to end up with a re-run of Thassilon! It's okay to carve out a keep or two but beyond that it begins to ruin the suspension of disbelief...for me, anyway.

You see, I am merely throwing around poorly conceived ideas simply to give the developers some food for thought. I will be the first to admit I am not in any way versed in the language of programming, so I have no idea which of my ideas are possible or not, but that's not even the reason I am throwing them around. I am merely giving the developers something to think about.

Speaking as a developer this is exactly what we need, and on what we truly thrive on. We can get very caught up in the mechanics of various functions and not see other possibilities. It's fun to get a lightning bolt out of the blue and suddenly think - hey, why didn't I see that!?

Don't put yourself down, good ideas are good ideas regardless of source or experience. :)

I've played a ton of MMOs, some more than others. From WoW to DDO, LotRO, Runescape, Allods, Perfect World, Runes of Magic, EVE and more... time-served, that's me.

The F2P model is the way to go (or at least the hybrid P2P/F2P model is the way to go) as it gives a lot more people an opportunity to play without investing a great deal. This being Pathfinder, that should be enough to hook 'em!

However, from my own experience, there is ALWAYS some element of a particular MMO that drives parts of their audience up the wall. Whether it's PVP, or lack of PVP, RP or no RP, micro-transactions in your face or jarring content - something will get parts of the audience up in arms.

I'm also a developer (though not of MMOs) so please believe me when I say that this is almost certainly YEARS away. Not many, but certainly two or three. These things take time and, because Paizo has a proven track record in this arena, I'm sure we'll all have our say.

Thanks for listening! Normal programming resumes...

PAIZOCON?!?!

It's only a model...

'Tis a silly place.

It has not been officially released as of yet... that may be why you are getting the error or the reason why they have not dispatched it yet for ya.

Good luck :)

Oh I wasn't expected it to be dispatched, ETA is mid-November (which I believe is a bit optimistic). I was just highlighting that it *was* visible on Amazon UK and now it isn't.

Regarding the Amazon release date, please see this post where I addressed the issue with Ultimate Magic: http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/general/amazonGoesWeir dWithUltimateMagic

Regarding the Beginner Box not being in Amazon UK: We are investigating.

Just wanted to say that I pre-ordered this from Amazon UK some time ago, and I can still see it in my "not dispatched" list. Oddly though, if I click on the link to go to the item itself I get an error saying the page cannot be found.

Looks to me like it was there, now it isn't. Sounds like a bug to me, as I'm sure if the item was removed I would have been alerted. Or should have...

100. Wonder where the other 80 things to do went.

Humans??? REALLY?!?

Do you guys who hate humans with such unbridaled passion... allow any in you party?

If I was a DM, I'd probably veto such blatant PvP suggestions.

Are you trolling, or what?

Why is Hu-mon, or Elf, or any other selection on the Favored Enemy list unacceptable? And more importantly, how is this relevant to this thread?

That's a little harsh. Phantom1592 might have been a little strident in tone, but it's a legitimate concern. I'd have great difficulty trying to get a party to stay together in such an environment. Excellent role-play potential, but sucks from a gaming perspective.

I have RPTools, FantasyGrounds and kLoOge. RPTools is excellent, not to mention free - and is currently my PFRPG DMing tool of choice. FantasyGrounds looks excellent, and plays well too - but there are too many idiosyncrasies for me to choose to DM with it (I play in a 4e campaign in it).

kLoOge is an old favourite, but with rather a steep learning curve. I would probably say it's the most powerful and customisable.

In short then - choose RPTools if you're just starting out and aim to keep most if not all of the character info separate. It can accommodate a lot of customisation, but not in an easy way. It's an excellent mapping tool though - especially if you're into dungeons and lighting!

I wish them nothing. A powerless head of state is a useless head of state. Either abolish the monarchy or give them absolute power again. The status quo is unacceptable...

Well, that's sad.

I can differentiate between wishing them happiness as a couple in love, and wishing them other things as a couple of future monarchs.

I'm not a royalist, nor republican - but quietly proud we have managed, through luck more than judgement, to retain an apolitical head of state. The monarchy costs us far less than a president would do, and how would you get a president? You'd vote for them. Or perhaps you wouldn't, there's no guarantee of that. And is any one individual more deserving of the role - and more likely to get it? We all know the most deserving hardly ever get their rewards.

The status quo is a far cheaper option. The royals work very hard for this country, and to change it for something just "different" rather than "better" smacks of a far more ludicrous waste of money, or perhaps simple jealousy.

Having an apolitical (and let's not forget "powerless") head of state is a huge asset, however we arrived at it.

I wish them all the best.

Reg: All right, but apart from the skill system, simplified armour class, streamlined classes, greater balance, cool game worlds, more variety, more races, the creating a community and gave us a good time, what has the previous edition ever done for us?

Attendee: Brought Fun and Joy?

Reg: Oh, Fun and Joy - shut up!

Reg: There is not one of us who would not gladly suffer death to rid this country of the previous edition once and for all.

Dissenter: Uh, well, one.

Reg: Oh, yeah, yeah, there's one. But otherwise, we're solid.

This is fantastic! Kudos to you for a re-write of a classic part of a classic film. Very funny. :)

In my opinion nothing is broken here

... or stupid.

Other people have mentioned this before (rpgsavant and DeathQuaker to name two), but it's worth saying again...

The entire round is six seconds long. The best thing to do is to take a round of actions and compress them into a six second scene. Everyone acts in order but their actions always overlap, they're all acting within the same six seconds after all.

The wizard steps back five feet and casts a spell, at the same time (in reality) as the fighter moving in and attacking. The only difference here is one of timing. If the wizard moves back and you don't have Step Up, then (in reality) you step up anyway but miss out on an Attack of Opportunity because you are fractionally too slow. Important word that - "fractionally". We're talking a second or two tops - in reality this is all the wizard would need.

Imagine if you were toe to toe with someone beating seven bells out of you. He steps back (for whatever reason). You didn't know he was going to, so it will take you a second or two to react - that might be all he needs. If you are highly trained you may be able to react instantly, but that's what Step Up is for.

In my opinion nothing is broken here. I don't know about you but we're always replaying combats in our minds just seeing what happened and when - it lends a cinematic feel to it all.

Of course though, your mileage may vary.

... stuff ...

Just curious, but how does a Procrastinator get to be level 12? Or is it that you should be level 20 by now but you keep putting it off?

+1, hell - make that +10 :)

I think people put too much emphasis on whether to free-form or not, and whether it is the right way to DM or not (as if such a thing existed!). The most important thing for any role-playing game, regardless of genre, mechanics or people is - is everyone having fun? If the group (including the DM) are, then you are doing it right, however that might be. If the group isn't, then mix it up and find a better way.

The E6 rules might be to your liking in this kind of a campaign.

+1

The card game Gloom (found here) has a mechanic where bonuses, penalties and symbols show through. It's also a fun game.

Personally speaking, I don't see the point in the high levels. I find that it stretches my 'suspension of disbelief' to breaking point. To each his own, of course - and, just to be contrary, I'm GMing Rise of the Runelords and enjoying it so far.

In line with the OP's comment though, you may want to consider the E6 (or 'Epic 6') variant, which can be found here. I'm seriously considering adopting it for future sessions, once RotRL is all done.

<slightly-off-track>

Wow. This is why I believe Paizo are destined for great things. No publisher I've had dealings with have gone into such great detail and length to explain how some things are. To my mind it's very interesting to see how these things work.

Thanks for taking the time to pop in and set a few things straight. It speaks a great deal about the maturity of a company.

/<slightly-off-track>

Love the Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference. :)

Come on, got to be Warlock. An existing word that represents a magic-practitioner proficient in weaponry. How can it be anything else?

Wait... there really is a place called Iceland?

It's right next to Greenland.

You mean Hyperborea?

Just off the coast of Albion.

Maybe they were all hiding when ABC News came to count them? Just a thought.

Here's hoping they add support for kLoOge or RPTools, both of which *are* cross-platform.

Yeah, it's bad when your favourite hardware isn't supported.

What sorts of mobile phones will that quasi-official Paizo mobile phone application run on again?

And wasn't it limited to this because that phone is apparently more widespread then the rest?

So why this insistence that this software supports something other than the most wide-spread operating system?

Excellent point, well made. Makes Paizo sound just a tad hypocritical. Seriously, this is a very short-sighted decision. Paizo doesn't have the resources to create their own multi-platform VTT so they should probably support *all* VTTs.

This attitude just doesn't sit well with all the good work Paizo have done in including the players in their beta and alpha playtests.

Originally the D&D rules grew out of wargaming which is very board-oriented. Which strikes me as odd considering I never used to use boards at all in our RP sessions that far back (yes, I do go that far back :) ).

For a long time now I've been using miniatures, maps and so on for combat until one week I got so thoroughly fed up with it. Combat dragged on and it seemed so distanced. I binned it all and went back to description only.

It felt so good to be back in control (as it were) and immediately felt familiar. I was removed from the restraints imposed upon me by the battlemat and I - and more importantly my players - enjoyed every minute of it.

To my mind it's a much superior form of game. The mind's eye is lowered to the ground level rather than the top-down viewpoint imposed by the map. Granted, there can be moments of confusion, but without the restraints of the board the players are for more likely to try something new, or cinematic.

I invariably say 'yes' to my players when they ask to do something, and just assign a difficulty, or preface it with a 'you don't think it'd be likely/possible' but allow them to try anyway.

This kind of play doesn't suit everyone, but everyone should at least give it a try.

Not sure why native Mac should be a deal breaker (nor am I sure where this post should go).

FantasyGrounds Forum

I use FantasyGrounds for 4E with no problems. The software is very good and very professional (though I do have one or two minor gripes about it).

With all the hype surrounding Pathfinder and the online content, as well as Paizo's embracing of technology so far, surely this is a little short-sighted?

Anyone got any comments?

One of my fondest memories dates back to the old DMG (the one with the efreet in the city of Brass on the cover - wow, that's old; i guess i must be as well then); it was the artefacts in the back of the book.

Not Golarion specific, but have you ever read Necromancer's 'Tome of Artifacts'? Wonderful book with the 1e feel of artifacts.

No, I haven't. I'll make a point to check it out. Thanks.

One of my fondest memories dates back to the old DMG (the one with the efreet in the city of Brass on the cover - wow, that's old; i guess i must be as well then); it was the artefacts in the back of the book.

I understand that this might be Golarion-specific (and therefore not core) but I would really like to see some artefacts, both powerful and mundane, done with full backstories and bonuses, penalties, curses and so on.

I know there are a few in the core rulebook but apart from the mechanics there's no historical context to them - which is what I would hope for for any artefact.

I would also like to add my voice to 'mass combat rules' both light and heavy. Sometimes you don't want to go through the real mechanics involved with dozens, sometimes hundreds of combatants; but sometimes the adventure calls for it - so squad-based and larger-based rules would be a god-send.

As an addendum I'd like to see the religions done in more detail. Holy days, religion-specific abilities and so on. Something akin to the 'priests of specific mythoi' of old.

That's my two-penneth.

What's the point of a level system if you explicitly say, "Well, you're just going to be better/worse than everyone else at this level"? How do you balance a system where characters are weaker than par at some levels and stronger than par at other levels if you can't guarantee that everyone will play at both level ranges? Sucking at low levels and being okay (or awesome) at high levels is a terrible way to balance a game.

There's a strong tendency, going all the way back to Gygax, for game designers to feel that it's okay to punish people who try to play the game in a way other than the way the designers intended. I'm extremely disappointed to see that attitude on display here, especially when talking about the intended path for taking a published prestige class!

Sorry, but no. Balance is the often seen as the Holy Grail of any RPG and it is nothing but anathema to me. Why should character A be balanced with character B? If you opt to take X levels in class 1 instead of class 2 then you're obviously not going to be as good at class 1 or 2 as any single-classed variant. Your strength lies elsewhere - versatility. It can't be classified, categorised or calculated. But it will be self evident in any game where you use it to your advantage.

Just my opinion, of course.

I play, and DM, in a weekly session (currently the DM). I know how annoying this is as it happens on and off to us as well - with the overriding issue being one of letting us know ahead of time.

Having said that, we do divide the issues into two distinct areas. If you don't attend, your character is NPC'd (usually by handing to another player); regardless of whether you let us know beforehand or not. The gaming is separate to the communication.

If there was a breakdown in communication, to us that's a separate issue - it's just inconsiderate. I'd mention it, maybe even shout about it, but I wouldn't penalize the character.

As you say he let you know ahead of time then I'd have no issue with that. However, if his character didn't take part in the session (and share the risk) then he shouldn't gain the reward - which is mostly why I NPC them to avoid such disparities.

That's my opinion though.

Since making the original post our DM has admitted he never expected it to turn out the way it did. I suggested that the 'dead when healing surges are zero' should have been 'unconscious when healing surges are zero'. He has adopted this. It hasn't changed the end result any (the remaining two players managed to win the final skill challenge and thereby the siege), but it does mean we didn't die.

I know, I know, it's terrible to have to change things after the event but if it was an error what can you do? No-one should die just because they have a string of bad die rolls.

In our favour it was the last thing to happen in the session and nothing has happened since, so the effect of changing it so we didn't actually die isn't as drastic as it might first appear.

Thanks for the comments.

First up, I'm only a player in 4e but I am a long time DM in other RPGs (D&D amongst them).

We finished up Siege of Bordrin's Watch last night. We did three skill challenges to simulate the actual siege - a tactical one, one in artillery and one in defence of the gates. We had to decide where to place ourselves and some troops. If we failed, we would lose a healing surge and if we ran out of healing surges we were considered 'killed in action'.

A few bad die rolls later (in fact I managed to make only 5 in the entire session: 1 x 5 and 2 x 1s) and three out of the 5 party members were dead (including my own).

Is this what skill challenges are for? It seems highly arbitrary to me.

Comments, anyone?

As a DM and player of many years (all the way back to Basic D&D) I have, naturally, developed my own style of DMing. I freely admit to winging a lot of stuff - fudging die rolls up or down as the case may be. I'm not adversarial as I truly believe that neither the DM nor the players are the important part; the *story* is king.

As long as the players are having fun (and effortlessly overcoming whatever monsters appear is *not* fun, but neither is forever living on the edge), and the story is progressing then I feel vindicated in my approach. Breaking the story to look up abstract rules is for the downtime between sessions, not at the gaming table.

The story can meander, depart, return and even change completely - as it is the contract between the DM and the players that chart its course. The DM is narrator, author and part ally and foe in equal measure.

No-one said it would be easy.

We're all here to enjoy ourselves and if we aren't enjoying ourselves, then why are we here?

Received!

Excellent work. Well done. I shall put them to use right away! :)

Me please! One of the adventures in my campaign is a conjurer that would find these incredibly useful.

And just in time for Christmas, a scroll of Unseen Servant for Balthasar, Caspar and Melchior. Or, to give it it's proper name...

(anyone?)

Staff of the Magi!

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

And just in time for Christmas, a scroll of Unseen Servant for Balthasar, Caspar and Melchior. Or, to give it it's proper name...

(anyone?)