Baron Iveagh's page

More of it, since the reason I dropped my subscription to everything was the move to 2e.

The PDF download seemed to be bugged for me. All the codes were accepted, and I can see the items on my digital files, but it either crashes when I try to download them, or sends me to an error page (You don't have permission to see this page).

Depends on who you ask.

At least one person on these forums is convinced that 2e is a sneaky attempt by the designers of 4e to spring their terrible ideas upon us all again even if it means financial ruin for Paizo.

A couple other people on these forums are personally offended if you so much as breathe the idea that 2e might have been in some small way inspired by 4e.

I don't have much opinion, but I'm pretty confident the answer is some where in between those options. :P

Its 4e, and I'm cancelling my subs. I got both Adventure paths at the same time yesterday. My reaction was best described as 'I can't even...'

I have to ask the question now, since given recent posts, it seems increasingly likely, was this pushed back to be part of Pathfinder 2.0, and if it was, where do I cancel my subscription again?

Please don't say "WE". I and some finite number of others want streamlined, and I suggest it is a goodly number, and as Vic(?) said upstream, streamlined does not equate to minimal choices.

And then you go on to how you're restricting player choices because they're giving you a head ache.

Let me be really blunt: I've playtested many games, both TT and VG. You'll find my name in Games Workshop's Battlefleet Gothic FAQ 2010 and my party was the one that showed how Dark Heresy 2.0' s initial combat system was utterly and inherently broken. (Unarmed guardsman: 'You're already Dead, Abaddon!' Single punch, Abaddon's terminator armored head promptly explodes with the actual damage and force of a hand grenade).

I'm going to give this a chance, but frankly, no, I'm not hopeful on this. In all the things I've tested, when people said 'streamlined' they really meant 'reduced options or increased number of books for the same options'.

After rereading the blog and FAQ as well as the 719 (as of this reading) posts I can say I am not sad or angry about this decision. More .. resigned.

Sort of like when you hear that Marvel is making Captain America a Nazi or comic book companies are rebooting every other month or there is yet another remake of a movie or series and so on.

The sort of feeling where you go ".. huh. Well. It *could* be good, I guess." I'm definitely in the wait and see camp. Several of the ideas I hear being put forward I am not interested in, and others sound at least a little interesting.

My major concern is that thus far, every RPG I have enjoyed, when they announced a new edition, died horribly shortly thereafter (looking at you, Dark Heresy).

This makes me very nervous. I prefer Pathfinder 1e to anything Hazcash and Wizards of the Spliff have produced and disliked Starfinder, even though I did buy the first book.

Basically this book had a lot of issues in development that caused it to "miss" its window. This is very, very, very difficult to claw back from, as all of our dev resources are already slated to be working on the _next_ thing, so we've got to find our time in bits and pieces.

It's in the mix, and we WILL release it, but I can't tell you exactly when right now (it'll be in 2018). We're in the midst of a developer hiring frenzy that will no doubt help a lot.

That's disappointing, since, apparently, my campaign setting subscription can't actually start for some reason till it comes out.

I know the haunted wreck in Scrapwall is smaller than a galleon. My party has been flying around in it for a few months. I had to guess the full wingspan, since the wings are not entirely shown in the diagram on page 28. I kept them short.

The haunted wreck, which I dubbed the Caterpillar and my party renamed The Rock, was a scout ship (see page 31) used as a launch by a much bigger ship, the recycling module Chrysalis (see page 7). The last surviving crew of the Chrysalis tried escaping in the scout ship, but they crashed along with the Chrysalis.

Using weight as a stat for a spell is difficult, because the source material seldom gives weight. Nevertheless, a good guess should be adequate.

Yes, but it's not hard to look it up when it's a real world thing. Most galleons averaged about 500 tons, but some of the big Spanish ones could exceed 2000 tonnes. I chose to use a more 'average' specimen to use as a rule of thumb. Broadly the spell seems to work with about 100 tonnes per hour of material given the examples.

According to the map and text, the map shows about half the ship, so figuring the 105 feet shown is part of a 210 foot ship, that appears about twice as wide as it is long.

Hmm... went back and reread my notes:

Based on comparisons to a marine forensics study of the wrecks of HMS Hood and the DKM Bismarck, Chrysalis would not have been very large, and frankly, I'm a bit confused, as there's no obvious, mile wide craters that the town sits in. Based on what we're told IIRC, she came down relatively intact, and exploded on impact. Bismarck fell 9k feet, and made a 1200 foot across crater before bouncing and sliding to a stop, and is relatively intact. Hood's debris field is much larger from the massive explosion and then breaking up as she sank. Scrapwall, as a debris field, is smaller than Hood, but bigger than Bismarck. I think it save to compare it to a modern fleet aircraft carrier in size.

However, some of those ships are tremendous. The Divinity is a mile across. The ship buried beneath Torch in Fires of Creation is perhaps a quarter of a mile across intact. The crash of the Chrysallis formed the town-sized scrap heap called Scrapwall. They could fit a galleon, the biggest ship mentioned in the Salvage spell, into an interior room. They seem beyond the size limit of the spell, except that the spell has no stated size limit.

It does have a stated time to reassembled, however. A 8-foot rowboat takes 1 minute to restore, a 50-foot keelboat takes 10 minutess to restore, a 160-foot galleon takes 4 hours (240 minutes) to restore. I would guess that the reconstruction time is proportional to the amount of material to reassemble, which is proportional to the volume of the ship. Thus, the 5000-foot Divinity would take 10,000,000 minutes to restore. That is 19 years. I suspect that some incidental magic would dispel the Salvage spell before it finished reconstructing the Divinity. The Divinity is haunted, after all, and many of the haunts would object to restoring the ship.

Also note that Salvage would not provide fuel or supplies for the spaceship, since a new ship would not necessarily have those yet.

The one they looked at was the haunted wreck at Scrapwall. and your math is off. A galleon weighs up to about 500 tons, where as our eyeballing the haunted wreck was about 75k tons, which would take, given the galleon, approx. 31 days, six hours. You were working from dimensions wheras the spell seems to work on actual material (compare longboat to galleon).

Also, that one ran off a Fusion generator, which runs on water, according to the technology guide.

Here's a question, but my party has raised it:

The spell 'Salvage' targets a shipwreck, and is basically "True Resurrection' for ships. From what I've read Spaceships are considered a type of 'ship' for magical purposes. Thus a wrecked one would constitute a 'shipwreck'.

What are you guys thoughts on this?

Personally I liked Rogue Trader's wealth stat/checks system where the whole party had a single 'Profit' stat rather than book keeping everyone's personal gold etc. Ship's point values could more or less be converted to points of wealth and vice versa.

Interesting choice of characters. I like the uniqueness of the idea, but part of me wonders how exactly Phaendar would tolerate a bunch of savage gnolls and goblins, let alone voluntarily travel with them as refugees.

I'm also intrigued by your mention of Longshadow, because part 3 isn't out until Wednesday. I imagine your party has already gotten through parts 1 and 2; and you have a subscriber copy of 3?

Yes, I sub, and it showed up in the mail a few days ago.

We were running on the idea that these were more or less passers by at the wrong moment, rather than citizens. (and my goblin was not allowed in town.)

The party leader roped the other PCs into it (minus mine) with the idea that A) the Iron Fangs had insulted their mercenary group [The Midnight Battalion] by not inviting them to join this little war. Further, beating them would have the duel benefits of getting a rep for being highly professional and 'human friendly', both meant in the long run they could charge a lot more for their services and get their pick of jobs. (note he was built using the Flind stats from d20pfsrd, and, personal opinion, is OP, even when built as a gunslinger)

A starting cha of 20 and a bit of social fu later, the evacuation of civilians was underway.

Party consists of a group of gnoll mercenaries and a dire bat riding goblin alchemist/siege engineer (who's name is Lyddia, but who's fellow goblins call 'Doctor Boom') who were going around marketing their skills.

The GM thought that it might provide yet more drama for 'monsters' working against their own self interest.

Thus far, best moment: Longshadow, as the emissary from the Iron Fangs gives their little speech demanding surrender, the Gronar the Flind in command gets up and gives one of his own

"I agree, night is for monsters. Longshadow has it's own monsters, fat cow! So come then, and we'll see who consumes whom! Open fire."

And then the goblins (Leadership can be a wonderful thing) fired their hwacha's into the dense hobgoblin formations and started dropping flares over the battlefield, illuminating the Iron Fangs...

Interestingly, one could always run out the timer on resurrection. The farthest back a character can normally reach is 200 years (CL 20 true resurrection). If the judging process takes longer than that (material time), problems only occur when somebody's trying to break the system. What if the time changes in the Boneyard are so that both the fastest and slowest judgings take slightly over 200 years, material plane time?

Using the Mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh, a mummy (a sentient Undead and therefore possessed of a soul) is created in the Empty Graves portion of Mummy's Mask. While the Mask is artifact grade power, we're seeing a 400 odd year (IIRC) old sorceress (IIRC) brought back.

Given how the rules treat undead, (which I grant are there to keep you from simply rezzing the Vampire) it would 'seem' that the counter starts over again once they become 're-dead' for purposes of resurrection, as their time as undead is specifically stated to effect their final judgment (IIRC).

As to myth, I have always heard of the make-from-a-root, so neven any organs.

For a familiar, there is the Ioun Wyrd, a familiar made of rocks; a Fetish Mask, for orc scarred witches; a spell poppet (=doll), for gravewalker witches. You can even have a Companion Figurine, which is a magic item. Having an animate object without organs will not significantly affect things.

/cevah

The root is an ingredient, (according to some recipes it's ground and mixed with the clay) so I don't follow your train of thought there. The clay is what's s sculpted into the body. However, it can speak (depending on ingredients, per Alchemy book) so there has to be something in there. There are biological ingredients (blood)and they do seem to 'splat' rather than 'break'.

The difference between fate and prophecy would be as follows:

Prophecy can be foretold. Fate cannot.

Basically, being able to hold the future to a script is not allowed, but since things still continue to happen, then there must be some present moment in which things do happen and become the past and immutable.

You're confusing the collapse of probable outcomes into a single event with Fate. That's like saying that the results of flipping a coin thirty times are Fate.

Prophecy is simply stating what Fate is.

And Fate got foretold a LOT before Aroden's death, apparently.

no, the statement is self-fulfilling. If the soul is not destined to be raised, then she judges it, and even if you try it won't come back.

But those Fate and Destiny words keep coming up, and the setting almost expressly throws them out the window.

Based on the scene from Lord of Runes, its more the soul itself decides when it it ready to stay in the aferlife (I believe there is an entire article in one of the adventure paths on this by the way, so I could be totally wrong)

That sounds like something I'd like to read, if you remember where you read it, please share. However, I'll point out that becoming undead after hundreds, or even thousands, of years dead would seem to toss that right out the window too.

114: Games Workshop filed suit, claiming to have the IP for Gods, particularly of Mankind.

This is a bit of a weird one, but it came up in a group session:

Do homunculi have internal organs?

I'm not really sure where to go with this one, as they're not clay golems, and their creation method differs wildly from anything but alchemical and flesh golems. The latter most certainly does have internal organs, the former does not. In myth they do, but Pathfinder is not Bullfinch's Mythology. Certain alchemist archtypes also seem to suggest they do.

Since this involves a familiar, I don't want to pull an answer out of my backside that might have long term implications in the game.

(note, I put this in the wrong section earlier, and I ask that if the mods delete one, they delete the other one.)

Prophecy doesn't work specifically on Golarion, but Fate still works, which is what Pharasma works off of.

Prophecy is the statement of Fate. Since even Gods do not know the future at this point, how would she work then with Fate?

It's like saying she works with light, but nothing reflects light in this universe.

in the example I'm thinking of, the party tries to raise someone long dead. this fails, as Pharasma has judged them. However, if this judgment, by nature, includes that no one will ever try to raise them from the dead, the judgment itself is then inherently flawed, as the party, unknowing, tried to do just that.

I can already hear the party gathering up their briefcases and heading off to the Boneyard to argue a mistrial.

Mavrickindigo wrote:

Hey, wait a minute. If prophecy no longer works in the setting, how come Pharasma still knows who will die when and who is destined to be resurrected? Shouldn't the Age of Lost Omens mess that up?

It's not prophecy that gives her this knowledge, but her particular deific abilities.

I hate to necro the thread (LOL due to subject), but it suddenly occurred to me that is absolutely not an answer, as there would be zero difference between that and any other deity's ability to prognosticate.

So, again, how long? What's the likely limit?

Party Necromancer sends in the skeletons.
Bard: THIS.... IS..... SPINAL TAP!

Paladin: before we let you join our team, tell me about your hobbies?
Necromancer: Scrimshaw, chess, Practical combat clothing that also shows off my very, very ample and very pale décolletage...
Rogue and Arcanist simultaneously: We'll take her.

Necromancer: Skeletons are a very efficient use for all these swords and pieces of armor we keep just finding on dead people!

Ok, a LONG time back there was a thread on how undeath, etc, effects souls and raise dead, true resurrection, etc.

Following the Mummy's Mask adventure, I have to wonder about the Boneyard, and just how long it takes Pharasma to judge someone.

The reason I wonder this is, in the second part of the adventure, we see someone do something that creates a LOT of instant undead, including undead which have souls, and not just from fresh bodies, but from corpses dead several thousand years.

I know this is artifact level power, but...

The second thing it made me wonder is that when working magic like 'raise dead' do you count time elapsed from when they stop breathing, or when they stop moving? Because, arguably, undead die again when slain. Something like a mummy has it's soul, or at least part of it (and, this is the central conceit of the entire adventure) and Pharasma's judgment is why there's a time limit on magical resurrections, wouldn't they be freshly 'dead' when defeated, no matter how long they had been undead?

Any movement on this? I'm rather curious about this one myself.

The stats have it using daggers, and it's Poison (SU) ability says it has hands.

Am I the only one who's party, on completing this, screamed 'we've found the Second Hyperspace core!" and immediately tried to build their own starship named 'The Pride of Golarion'?

Hopefully the neo nazis who siezed power in Ukraine dont have access to any Russian nukes in any of the other Ukraine black sea ports. Otherwise Russia will need to secure them all.

Well, one, the Ukraine is a nuclear power in and of itself.

Two, the 'Neo Nazis' represent one of several political parties that united to oust the previous president. A member of which currently holds authority over the Ukrainian department of agriculture. I don't see them as a major threat.

Three, the Parliament of the Ukraine voted, and passed, an impeachment of him. Something that people seem to forget and Putin seems to be trying hard to ignore.

His OWN PARTY voted in favor of the Impeachment.

This was always my favorite setting book from Scarred Lands. Has anyone tried updating the Prestige Classes, etc, in it?

Animator made for fantastic Minion Spam.

Always nice to see a fan fav getting updated.

Will Paizo ever offer prints of any of the awesome artwork that has graced the pages and covers of Dragon and Pathfinder for us gamer-types to purchase? Does anyone know?

I second that, congrats!

I'm sort of curious, but as someone who's bought a WIDE variety of D&D themed programming, such as eTools, Core Rules, CC2, and every D&D video game to ever come down the pike, I have to wonder:

Will Paizo produce a eTools or Core Rules type program for Pathfinder?

Should they?

Your thoughts on this.

I dunno:

I got most of that content for a fairly low price from eTools and Core Rules 2.0 (way back in AD&D) and I could pick and choose the updates I wanted. I'm gonna say that while I'd pay for a database of monsters, and have in the past, I won't pay per month for them.

I'll admit, I've had no fun with 4th. I have played, though not much. My major gripe about 4e, other then the canning of Dragon, is that it seems to me to lack the variety and freedom of choice that 3.5 had, forcing me into specific "builds" in order to be effective.

Though admittedly, this was further exaggerated by people yelling "ding" when they leveled up, and describing their character as a "prot-specced pally" and describing non-masterwork weapons they found as 'vendor crap'.

I have not rped with this group since, and have gone back to my old 3.5 team.

..Sorry, suffering the urge to snark about the announcement:

"Our new fansite policy, in light of a ruling by the US Supreme Court, is that we will no longer water board fansite web masters nor imprison them behind walls of "Cease and Desist" orders. The reported allegations of using them as a cheap source of labor in our Chinese prison camp factories is totally baseless. Our accounting department ruled that plan to be non-cost effective."

I need to revise my opinion.

PHB Pg.35 "Rarely do an individual's scales match the hue of a chromatic or metallic dragon, and scale color gives no indication of the type of breath weapon a dragonborn uses."
This indicates they do intend to have metallic dragons in their main game world, just not in the first Monster Manual.

Being that the idea is to force us to buy the 2nd, 3rd, 4th...27th Monster Manuel.

As I predicted on announcement it's the M:tG plan applied to D&D.

I dislike the new lack of 3.x style multi-classing. It gives a lot less freedom of choice in your character design.

I dunno:

While I'll say that I'm thus far unimpressed with 4e (to put it mildly) Yes, it is coming, bar some unforeseen act of God (I'm praying, how about you?). The problem is that we're only getting dibs and dabs of info, so that we don't have a full picture (the idea of being class-bound again like in 1st appalls me)and can have meaningful debate. So I agree that all debating before the launch and some more serious playtesting is meaningless. Though entertaining.

Hold one... I'll need at least an Battleaxe +5, +1d8 against outsiders, to hit the tax collector... LOL

As the good cleric would say: "Brothers, let me hear an Amen!"

I was wonderin why my subscription items:

- Dragon 359 Poster Map
- Pathfinder #2
- Pathfinder #3
- Pathfinder #4
all state that they "will ship with a future Pathfinder volume".

I read the sticky post, but it doesn't state anything about shipment with a future volume.

I think they mean it will ship when Pathfinder 4 ships in Dec.

I just got a good look at Gleemax.com, which Wizards is touting as the 'answer' to Dragon, and have never been more revolted in my life.

To think that Hitler's Brain in a jar could supplant Dragon...

Further more, reading in the user agreements, site licenses etc, I found out something I find more revolting yet.

Wizards owns everyhting you post there. All your homebrew is now thier property if you use it. Further fun, according to thier EUA you agree tehy don't hae to credit you or remit a dime of payment if they publish your creation in thier own books.

That's just wrong, because it IS NOT on thier front page, nor to they inform you of it at any point in the sign up process.

Fletch wrote:

By doing what?

by buying issues #360, 361, and 362, that's how!

That I would buy any remaining issues published by Paizo goes without saying. But we need to actually DO something about this, rather then just complain about it.

Not really sure, the thought just occured to me. Though gathering up a large crowd and havingthem chant 'Bring Back Dragon' near the Wizards booth and carry signs to that effect occures to me.

Here's a thought that has crossed my mind... how many, if any of you, are going to protest the closure of Dragon at GenCon this year?

Why not just do one for the one's you guys have done?

Annual #1.

Normally I don't post on boards like this... but this is a Black Day when I read about then end of Dragon. *sigh*