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From the ones I've run, my top 3 would be: * Entombed with the Pharaohs. Best killer dungeon I've met. Not overly long, with the right amount of combats, traps and little tricks, and with a very interesting enemy party. * The Hook Mountain Massacre. All the RotRL modules are great, but this one stands out among them. A lot of variety and freedom for the PCs, colorful villains and really sick/disturbing moments. My players still have nightmares about Mama Graul. * Howl of the Carrion King. A sandbox with lots of NPCs to interact with, multiple choices regarding courses of action and even goals, and a setting with its unique feeling, different from the pseudo-medieval-europe that we all know and love.
I've just come back from my post office. The postman didn't leave me any notice, so I didn't know if it had arrived. Today I had to go for another reason, and when I asked if they had anything else for me, they told me "Well, we had a package from the USA, but we've returned it to sender" :( Would it be possible for you to resend it to me with my next subscription shipment? Thanks in advance :) On the other hand, my copy of the Pathfinder RPG core book (which was part of that order, but was shipped apart) arrived in time and in perfect conditions. Great work there!
Mine arrived this evening as a big surprise. Living in another freakin' continent, I didn't expect it to arrive before next week or so. The foam inserts were a hugely nice detail, too. The book arrived in perfect condition, although I don't know if it'll endure my constant drooling all over it :D So, thank you for all your effort, seriously. I've always thought highly of your customer service, but this was absolutely terrific. Buying from you is worth every cent.
Oh frak. There go another 10-20 bucks a month. Well, eating is overrated anyway...
Until now, my favorite location was wherever the AP I'm running at the moment is ;) I've recently started a sandbox PBP game set in Darkmoon Vale (I'll use elements from D0-2, but probably none of them exactly as written). The Chronicles book about it is screaming for something like that, and who knows, if the adventure lasts long enough, where will it end! ;)
As others have said, the only essential thing you would need for an AP is the player's guide for it. If your players like to immerse themselves into the setting and are of the heavy background type (as mine are), you'd find Gods and Magic very useful. The Gazetteer or the Campaign Setting will also be of use (but having both would be quite redundant). The rest of the Chronicles and Companion books are, indeed, more useful if you're NOT running an AP than if you are. They have excellent fluff, but it's mostly DM stuff, and the DM stuff for the APs is properly covered by the AP themselves.
A simple question: in a group that uses the Critical Hits Deck and enjoys it a lot, how do we get use of the critical feats in PFRPG? When they were posted in the playtest forums, we decided not to use them (although the rest of them were widely accepted) because it could lead to strange effects. And, frankly, if I wanted to refluff so that the description I give matches the game effects, I'd use 4e. Now, am I mistaken? Has any of you used both elements? How do they mix, if they mix at all?
I think the best pugwampis out there are Reaper's kobolds, which are small enough to be tiny and have the traditional kobold's dog faces. I was planning to use them, but we started our LoF campaign a week too early and I ended up using DDM goblins. BTW, what I WILL use are Reaper's gnolls. I'm a sucker for minis, and there are some places where DDM is just not enough. Not one of the DDM gnolls has been able to scare me, so I had to make up my own.
There's been a mistake with my order. Instead of the stated "Pathfinder Chronicles: Harrow Deck (PZO9200), I got a booster of item cards. Could it be possible for it (the Harrow Deck) to be added to my next subscription shipment? On the plus side, I'm considering now buying some more item cards :D Thanks in advance, and keep on with your excellent work ;)
What form would you like these books to take? Would you be interested in subscribing to such a line, provided the books cost somewhere around $35 a pop? I'd probably not subscribe to them, but rather buy them individually as part of my non-subscription orders. 35$ is something I want to control exactly when I spend. What titles/ideas would you like to see us explore? Some suggestions:
What I don't like to see:
All these three would be better covered in the Chronicles/Companion lines, with Golarion fluff. We're all worried about rules bloat. What is your opinion of new classes and races? I like new base classes, as long as they cater to different enough concepts as opposed to just "an X, but better". From the Complete and PHBII books from WotC, I liked things as the Warlock or the Marshall, but found redundant things like the Swashbuckler (a Finesse Fighter) or the many "as an specialist wizard, just better" (Beguiler, Warmage...). Also, I'd rather see a big "Player Options" book than a myriad "Complete X" manuals. Are you as tired of prestige classes as I am? I like seeing the odd one or two on setting books, as long as they're specific enough. For example, if there's a book about dwarves, I don't mind seeing a Runecarver or a Tunnel defender prestige class. But I've seen too many "player concept" prestige classes which could have been avoided with better multiclassing rules or a couple of feats.
People are still undecided on which should the DC for combat maneuvers be. 15+CMB is seen as too high, whereas 10+CMB seems too easy. What I'm proposing is tweak the combat rules a bit to allow both options: If you want to try a CM, you can choose if you'll provoke an AoO or not. If you decide to provoke it, your maneuver has a DC of 10+CMB. If you "maneuver defensively", your DC would be 15+CMB. I must admit I absolutely love combat maneuvers, and my intend is to encourage players to use them more and more creatively (even trying their own as "blind", "push" or whatever). In fact, I'd be very happy if the maneuver rules were something similar to a streamlined "Book of Iron Might".
We have simplified modifier stacking in our games by means of streamlining the modifier types. As for now, we use: Equipment, Situational, Dodge and Aura. "Aura" modifiers are modifiers imposed by spells, spell-like or supernatural abilities. Each character can have just one aura imposed upon them. If a character with an aura already upon him is granted another one, the most powerful replaces the weaker. If both auras are equally powerful, the last replaces the former. As it is now, we mostly decide which aura is more powerful on the fly (we don't care too much about number crunching, so the DM's (me) decision is generally accepted as the fairest one), but it would be great to have it codified. Sadly, I'm too lazy to do all that work ;)
How do we use CMB: * You can use a maneuver in place of an attack. We also allow more maneuvers than the ones listed (using "Book of Iron Might" as an inspiration). * Modifiers which could apply to attack/CA are also applied to the CMB roll. Exceptions are modifiers based on equipment (weapon, armor, shield). * If the maneuver substitutes an iterative attack, it also suffers the penalty to such attack (-5 if 2nd, -10 if 3rd, etc).
I also disagree with the OP. Rather than making it a "necessity" to have a cleric, channeling positive energy now gives the cleric more options other than being a box of band-aids. The bard has options; the druid has options; the 3E cleric was basically the guy who always wished people weren't getting hurt so he could cast some of his cool spells. Now, he too has options. Well, I like the effects of Channel Energy precisely because of that: now Clerics can actually cast their spells and do their "thing", not just sit down and wait for someone to need to be healed. But it also makes clerics something a party can't afford not having, because it is essential if they want to survive for more than just one encounter. Let's look at it this way: If a party wants melee combatants, it has barbarians, fighters, paladins and rangers from where to choose. If it's DPS what they need, they have monks, rogues, rangers and sorcerers. If they want utility/support, they have bards, clerics, druids, monks and wizards. But if they want healing, they have just one option: cleric. So, giving some characters (bards, druids or paladins come to mind) the ability to heal better than they currently do, maybe with an aura similar to the dragon shaman's, you are raising the options for the players and allowing a more varied character selection. Surely, clerics need to be the greatest healers, because it's their archetype, but they shouldn't be the only available option for a party in need of healing.
Our problem with Channel Energy (which has been a real boon to our campaigns, OTOH) is not that they make the Cleric too powerful (it isn't; it just keeps the rest of the group going), but that it makes it a necessity. Each party now must have a cleric or they're at a big disadvantage. The solution would be giving channel energy-like powers to more classes. Maybe a "healing song" for Bards that healed its allies a number of hp equal to their Bard level or a "inner bloom" for Druids that gave a collective +2 bonus to Constitution. As for turning undead, I like the "keeing at bay" fluff, so maybe we could leave it at that: "turned" undead would, instead of run away, be unable to get closer to the Cleric on the next few rounds.
We've used what I think are the standard assumed rules, that is, if you try a maneuver as an iterative attack, you receive a penalty depending on which attack it is. Second attack gets a -5, third a -10, and so on. We're CMB fans. If we didn't like the final version of PFRPG, we would nevertheless use CMB and the simplified skill point mechanics in our 3.x games (or our 4e ones, who knows).
We use alternative death and dying rules, and everyone seems satisfied with them: * When you're at negative hp, at the start of your turn you lose 1d3-1 hp. The third round you roll a 0, you get stabilized. They don't need to be consecutive. This replaces the standard stabilization roll. * If you're brought to negative hp and get healed, you get a negative level.
I don't quite like the idea of increasing casting time for high level spells, for some reasons: * There are spells whose "thing" is that they're quick to cast.
So, I like giving combat characters the option to move more better. And the ideal way to do this, IMO, would be using feats.
We're hitting high levels in our RotR campaign (well, higher than we've ever hit in 3.x, anyway :P). I'm going to introduce this new feat: Combat swiftness (Combat)
The relevance of certain skills over others is not a rules problem; it's a table problem. If the DM doesn't place any traps, then Disable Device becomes useless. IF he doesn't place intelligent NPCs who can be bluffed, convinced or intimidated, then Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate and Sense Motive become useless. Same way, if the DM is always using monsters with maxed Stealth, Perception becomes a "skill point tax". A good DM should present different kinds of challenges, and a good PC groups should try to cover as much ground as possible. If every PC maxes out the same skill, they're simply wasting resources. The second maxed Perception could very well have been that life-saving Knowledge (engineering) that tells them the dungeon level they've descended wasn't constructed by goblins, but by drow...
3.5 Cleave saw little or no use in most campaigns. At least, in our game I think it was used just one time (and it was by a monster). PF Cleave, OTOH, is being used a lot in our playtest campaign. We're currently at level 7, and both the fighter and the barbarian welcome the opportunity of making a second attack without the -5 penalty. I can see where this feat is no longer as useful at levels 12+, but that's just the reason to get Great Cleave.
I just have to say that I'm loving the way the Cthulhu Mythos are being "kinda" integrated in Golarion. It gives it a feel of Sword & Sorcery old-style, as with Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, and we have a source for high-level bad guys apart from demons and devils. I hope to see more Lovecraftian stuff in Pathfinder (hopefully in the Bestiary?). Until then, keep on with the good job!
Thanks! :) I can always make Elder Eyes (nod nod, wink wink) a random encounter in the Darklands, or put one or two of them instead of any other Darklands BBEG. Carrion Carwler/Otyugh... Could work. The main problem here is that I like a lot the Carrion Crawler mini from DDM (my players call it "huggies" ("abracitos")). But I like Otyughs too, so I could make them a 50/50 encounter. And you have just completely changed the way I'm going to present PF6 to my players: IMC, Leng is going to be populated by squid-head "denizens", with its own sub-race of thralls-livestock. They'll hate it, I'm sure >:)
I'm talking about closed content monsters: beholders, displacer beasts, mindflayers, umber hulks and carrion crawlers. At first I thought it would be easy to replace or ignore them, as there are so many other cool monsters around there, and the stories I'm able to tell with them are equally as interesting, so I don't miss them from a narrative point of view. But I feel the game lacking something without them. I want my players to fight big floating balls with eye beams, giant centipedes with paralyzing tendrils and brain-eating squidmen. I know you can't write them in for copyright reasons, but please leave them a space to live in Golarion!
Regular elementals (no ToEE in 4E? How in Heck can it be D&D without ToEE?). Animals. Metallic and Gem Dragons. As happens with the PHB, 4E's Monster Manual seems "deliberately incomplete". I don't feel I have a complete game with the 3 core books. And I used to run "just core" games (now I run "just PF" games :P).
Frankly, Paizo could publish their adventures using "rock-paper-scissors RPG" and I'd buy them, so 4E vs 3.x vs PFRPG is not the key point, at least for me. I go for the good stories wherever I happen to find them. So, did Paizo make the right decision staying OGL? The answer, to me, would be yes, because the OGL allows Paizo to write the stories I want to read/play/run, whereas the GSL and its constraints over IP and "children-friendly" content doesn't. I know some people who made the full switch to 4E and still run Paizo adventures. It's not the crunch what makes their material good; it's the fluff. And it's a pity the GSL doesn't allow that kind of fluff.
Maybe some "spell packs" would be a good idea for quick wizard NPCs: Something as 6-7 different concepts with 2-3 spells per level would be more than enough for a "1-encounter" wizard. If you want a full-fleshed out one, then you'd add the missing spells. Blaster
I'll tell you what I want: if I'm running a 3.5 adventure (as one of the current Adventure Paths or a Gamemastery module) using Pathfinder RPG, I don't want to 'convert' anything more than adding a few hps to monsters or something like that. By now, that's been possible with the Alpha releases (perhaps Alpha 1 was a tad too far with the skill system and the chained feats, but nevertheless I was still able to run "Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale" as written), and I don't think the Beta is going to be too different from Alpha 3, except for adding missing SRD content to make it a full game instead of a "parchment".
In my campaigns, when creating characters or going up levels, I've always let my players choose between: a) Roll Abilities or use point-buy method.
To this day, they've always chosen the random method. So, if I take it away from them, I know it'll be missed.
Well, I'm not suggesting anything, and I see the point in not risking a lawsuit. On the other hand, for me and my group, these monsters are what make D&D what it is, so from a pure consumer's perspective, I'd be great if they had a place in a Pathfinder Bestiary. Not a though deal, anyway, as we can always use the 3.x MM version of them with Pathfinder without much hassle.
And now for a tricky question: What about those non-SRD monsters which are needed for a full D&D-like experience? Will we have our "big head with many eyes", our "psionic humanoid with squid-like head who eats brains", our "panther with tentacles that might not be exactly where you see it" and so on?
I liked the Rituals idea (if not its implementation) and the Artifacts section. Those are the aspects of 4E I'd probably borrow for my Pathfinder games. The rest of 4E... It's not bad, I even like many of its ideas, but it's simply a very different game to the one I expect Pathfinder RPG to be. There's no point in having 2 different RPGs if they're going to play the same way, is it?
I prefer this option, too. It seems more easy to track and doesn't put so much weight on the first levels. "X weapon groups, +X to attack/damage" seems right to me. And it would be coherent with the skill system (although if it's being revised and the revision changes it too much, maybe this'll be false in a near future).
I know why are those extra hps there, and we welcomed them in our playtest game. The end result, however, was that characters, and especially "weak" characters, were already getting a hp boost in the form of die upgrade and +1 bonus per favored class. That's the thing. We liked it on paper, not so much in use. Die upgrading, +1 hp per favored class and the changes in the Thoughness feat are more than enough. |
