Biichama's page

If you're concerned about leveling at the right times, you could have them on the fast XP track? That's what my group does with six people parties in APs. They do the normal medium track for four person and split the difference for five person.

Biichama wrote:

Everyone is having a lot of fun, even though sometimes I suspect the players are trying to break the AP.

Just as it is a prisoner's first duty to escape, it is an AP player's first duty to break the path. :)

(We're hoping that the enraged sheep spirits won't be associated with us. We're probably wrong.)

Remember who you're married to, dear.

Hi! I'm running Jade Regent for our gaming group and the PCs just did the whole rigamarole with Snorri Stone-eye's funeral barge. Anyway, the shark-eating crab snapped the wizard (Andrezi) in half and the PCs decided that since the oni already probably knew where they were--due to all the notoriety-gaining stuff they'd done, like towing a boat into town and dressing up like sheep to attack Asvig's farm--they might as well use the seal to resurrect him. Which they did on the other side of Kalsgard from where the caravan, ran the f@$+ away to the other side and then shoved their potion of restoration down his throat.

Anyhow, what I was wondering is how many notoriety points do they gain through opening up the warding box? DO they get any? (We are breaking now for them to level and they'll hit the Temple of Shelyn next session, so you have some time to answer.)

Anyway, thank you so much for bringing us Jade Regent! Everyone is having a lot of fun, even though sometimes I suspect the players are trying to break the AP.

I still can't believe I let you guys do this.

Yes.

After the campaign I ran dried up after the first book, I didn't think I'd ever do Serpent's Skull again. Then one of the other people in my gaming group decided they wanted to GM it and so now I get to play. Yay. I am doing my best to pretend I know nothing about anything :)

Our guys are:

-- Brother Urs of the Loyal Order of Urist, my dwarven weapons adept monk with a staff (who is rocking the whole Friar Tuck look instead of the normal monk outfit.) He was a sailor on the Jenivere. He is currently convinced the [spoiler with wings] is the Splatter Man due to his own convoluted logic. He likes punching things.
-- Kilroy, the gnome archivist bard that my husband played in the Serpent's Skull that never finished, only aged up to Old for this new one. He can and will lecture at the drop of a hat and is basically the only face we've got.
-- Sellis, an asimar Starsoul sorcerer whose reactions to most things are Mage Armor followed by Minute Meteors. It keeps working, though, so he may be onto something.
-- Bellonna, a shapeshifting ranger who I think is either human or half-elf? She's a tall one, anyway. Urs gave her one of his extra staffs so she'd have a melee weapon.
-- Onixia, an oread druid, and her pet leopard. The GM nearly killed her twice in one session, but he's a killer GM so I suppose this should be expected.

The party I'm GMing for is in Brinewall now and have just befriended spivey. It consists of:

--Sayanna, a half-elf cleric of Desna. Has a crush on Shelaelu (but ended up making it with Ameiko the very first session due to very good rolling on her player's part.)
--Amalia, a halfling Dark Tapestry oracle with a haunted curse. She is best friends with Sandru.
--Andrezi, an insane tiefling wizard who due to rolling rather usefully on the tiefling power chart has an INT of 22. Unfortunately, he also has a WIS of 6 and it shows. He is a friend of Koya. His first action was to accidentally color spray the party, most notably...
-- Montecrastigrin, a gnome cavalier of the order of the Blue Rose and his beloved wolf, Luna. Monte is best friends with Ameiko.
-- Guyzelsuss Noggenfoggen, a gnome rogue who used to be Jervis Stoot's apprentice woodcutter, so it's really no surprise that he's happy to get out of town and away from the weird looks. He has the gnome variant thing where he can turn really tiny, because he'd found about about Spivey before the campaign began and wants to romance her. Sigh. Guyzel was Shelaelu's student survivalist.
-- Arina, a half-elf ranger and the last addition to the group. She is one of Sandru's caravan guards and this is her player's first Pathfinder game.

As with my last obit, this isn't exactly for a death but is a change of character regardless.

Name: Phoenix
Race: Elf
Classes/levels: Alchemist (Grenadier) 6
Adventure: Trial of the Beast
Location: The Breakfast Table
Catalyst: Mars Needed Him
The Gory Details: Player DL lost his character sheet. He decided that rather than rebuild his character sheet, he would make a new character as none of the other players really liked Phoenix as Phoenix as a) evil and b) creepy. As the group was planning on setting out for Schloss Caromarc at the start of the session, it was decided that DL would spend the session building his new character while we played a somewhat shortened session (due to the missing sheet drama and T having work early in the morning.)

So when I started the campaign I declared that they were all eating breakfast... when Azren (the broken and overpowered synthesist that I asked T to retire due to no one else getting to do anything when he was around) dimension doored in, declared "MARS NEEDS YOU," grabbed Phoenix, and dimension doored out. The PCs did not bat an eyelash, except for the newest addition, the tiefling magus Sertiyel (T's new character), who--having only been with the party for two days--was kind of freaked out. The other PCs reassured him that this was normal for them. "But what does it mean, Mars needs him?" asked Sertiyel and of course none of the other PCs knew because this is Golarion and Golarion has no Mars. "I don't even know and I'm the Narrator," said I.

Game was then paused while the players discussed the significance of MARS. Meanwhile I was diabolically inspired. I told T that he should build versions of Phoenix and Azren (as well as Darsk and Kwen, T and DL's characters who perished in HOH) at level fifteen so that once Carrion Crown is done I can send them after the PCs for one final session. Mars, it was declared, is the name of the party of discarded characters and each time someone discarded a PC so that he could play a new shiny, that PC would become a member of Mars. I am hoping this will reduce PC turnover. Although, S1--the barbarian's player--had been making noises about replacing his guy with a paladin, so it remains to be seen whether or not he wants to give Mars the ability to RAGE LANCE POUNCE.

Anyway, DL's new character, a halfling sorcerer of the arcane bloodline named Rassilon (yeah, I know), was found tied up and gagged in a trunk inside the gatehouse of Schloss Caromarc with crude drawings on his face (probably done by the trolls or their goblin slaves) at the end of the session. It was further established that he was a friend of the Count who had come to visit him and--upon seeing the trolls--tried to sneak in using his hat of disguise. Unfortunately, he hadn't really thought about the fact that the hat doesn't change your size category and hence was caught fairly easily.

He is Lawful Good and evidently is a bit confused as to where his spells come from. A devote worshipper of Sarenrae, he seems to have formed the impression he gets his spells from her instead of from his bloodline. It is likely that he will end up being Lawful Stupid, but hopefully the other players will find this an improvement on Creepy Evil and that Rassilon will last the rest of the campaign. Or at least longer than one book.

... am I the only one disturbed by their expressions?

The MAD thing can be a pain in the butt, but monks can be pretty awesome even at lower levels. I just started playing my first monk for a friend's Serpent's Skull campaign and I'm having a lot of fun. And my dude's a Weapons Adept which does mean I lose the ability to grant status effects with my punches but on the OTHER HAND I get Perfect Strike as a bonus feet at FIRST LEVEL and I can use it as many times a day as I have monk levels. And I still get flurry of blows. And you keep your WIS bonus for AC even when you're flat footed, so I have the highest flat footed AC in my party.

And there are ways of working around the MAD thing. Make your monk a dwarf for one, because you'll get bonuses on CON and WIS, both of which you'll want, and minuses on CHA which is one of the stats you don't actually need! Make sure you have a decent amount of STR for your damage rolls, CON for everything that gets through your AC, and WIS to keep that AC up. DEX is good too, but monks are often melee so it's not as important. Dump the hell out of CHA and to a lesser extent INT.

Sure, you'll end up an uncharismatic, short, beardy meathead, but that can be lots of run to roleplay as!

This isn't quite a death, but it is a PC being, ah, retired while his player rolled up someone new.

Name: Azren
Race: Half-elf
Classes/levels: Summoner (Synthesist) 5
Adventure: Trial of the Beast
Location: Vorkstag and Grine's Chymic Works
Catalyst: Summoned back to his home planet.
The Gory Details: When Player T said he wanted to roll up a summoner to replace Darsk, I said sure. My husband went 'oooh' because he likes summoners too and brought out Ultimate Magic to show T all the different summoner archetype. T decided he would play a synthesist and summon himself.

Unfortunately, as we would find out over the course of the next few sessions, the synthesist archetype is very easy to make massively broken and I became very frustrated with Azren. Finding out that that he and the party barbarian, Haskel Stonearse, would eventually be able to team up in order to RAGE-LANCE-POUNCE their way through everything drove me to drink. Feeling cocky, T challenged me to do my best to kill him off and I almost did the one time T was forced to drop his synthesist form.

Finally, T showed me how he'd worked out exactly how scary he'd be at level ten and I looked him in the eye and told him that I was very sorry, but I needed him to retire Azren from this campaign. He would be allowed to bring him back over the summer for when I do my homebrew campaign, but he's just too unbalanced for an AP. T admitted sheepishly that he expected I'd say something like that if he'd showed me the level ten build and spent a lot of the evening figuring out what else he'd like to be.

Which is how Azren was suddenly summoned back to his home planet last session.

We'll be meeting his newest character, a tiefling magus named Sertiyel, in the upcoming sesson.

I find that with six people you probably want to use the fast experience track instead of the medium.

Either a paladin (because I haven't played one yet and it would be fun to go 'round being a self-righteous dick to everyone), a monk (haven't played one either and I'd love to play him as a Western Friar Tuck character) or an inquistor (because I haven't played one and they look interesting.)

I have people roll stats in my games, although I'm thinking of trying a point buy with my current group if we do a third game. I've built characters using both rolling and point buying and I'm fine with either system. I just want everyone using the same system for generating stats, whatever the hell it is.

When I first started out GMing I did a game where people were supposed to use the 25 pt buy and two of the players rolled their stats instead and it was distinctly uneven. I should have made them go back and change things, but I hadn't learned how to assert my authority yet. I'm surprised the game lasted as many sessions as it did. Anyway, that fiasco is why I've just stuck to rolling since then, even though I've since moved away for college and have (except for my husband) a whole new group of people.

One of my friends who GMs has people role 4d6 drop 1s and 2s under the theory that no one should have to suffer having a stat less than 9. His players always end up super powerful, so he'll do things like send three PCs against forty orcs.

Name: Kwen Buttmonkey, Heir of Derp
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Fighter 3
Adventure: Haunting of Harrowstone
Location: The Western Cellblock
Catalyst: The Piper of Illmarsh and his fellow PCs
The Gory Details: Kwen's player wanted to retire him so that he could play an alchemist instead. (It was his first game and he hadn't know about the APG when everyone rolled up.) Together we decided that the when the Piper's haunt was on its last legs, we should have it possess Kwen (since Kwen's drunken singing had called the Piper's stirges earlier in the module) and the other PCs would have to kill Kwen to defeat it. After Kwen died, they left his body up in the Cellblock to rot.

His alchemist replacement, Phoenix, is an evil, cowardly, and greedy elf.

Name: Darsk
Race: Dwarf
Classes/levels: Ranger 3
Adventure: Haunting of Harrowstone
Location: The Nevermore
Catalyst: The Splatter Man and his summoned dire rats
The Gory Details: Darsk was a devout practitioner of the Green Faith. When his tracking skills deduced that the vandal had drained the blood of living animals to deface the town statue, he declared a vendetta on whoever had committed this heinous crime. When it came time to fight the Splatter Man, it seemed as though his chance had come! Alas, the combination of previous wounds, the Splatter Man's maximized magic missiles, and the toxic bites of the summoned dire rats proved fatal to poor Darsk. He was avenged by his comrades, who took his body from the dungeon and buried in the forest, planting a tree to mark his grave.

Well, except for Phoenix, who wasn't allowed to go to the funeral because of being creepy.

Darsk will be replaced next week by a middle-aged half-elf summoner named Azren.

So there was a brass brazier in one of the rooms in Harrowstone and I mispronounced the word "brazier." And one of my players kept giving me s~+# about it. So when he asked if there was a brass brassiere in the laundry room, I said yes.

So he put it on.

I told him that it gave him him +1 to his armor.

Also, breasts.

He said the bonus was worth it.

Later that night I informed that the brassiere was cursed and he was stuck with it (and the boobs) FOREVER.

Moral: Don't mock the GM.

We just moved into married housing at my new college, so I'll be running this one with a bunch of people I've never played tabletop with before and certainly never GM'd for! (They're mostly people I've met in the gaming club here, plus some friends of theirs, plus my husband.) Everyone came over to roll up tonight and we ended up with a full party. (Which means I don't have to make a GMPC, yay!)

So! Our gang of miscreants are at level one:

--Calilara (125), CG elf rogue, who is especially tall even for an elf
--Haskel Stonearse (55), NG dwarf barbarian/berzerker, who is especially short even for a dwarf
--Darsk (67), CN dwarf ranger, who is normal-sized and spent most of his money on a composite bow
--Kwen (20), LN human fighter, a laborer turned soldier from Molthune who wants to toss dwarves
--Father Beardowitz (117), NG dwarf cleric of Cayden Cailean, who caries holy ale and does not want to be tossed
--Klarion Bleak (??), NG halfling witch, who is totally not ripped off from some random witch-boy kid from DC comics (*cough cough*)

... man, this is one short party. One short, hairy, drunken party. (Half-hairy and half-drunken. And two-thirds short. STILL.)

Calilara, Kwen, Father Beardowitz, and Klarion Bleak were all on Lorrimor's payroll at various points in time, for unspecified reasons, bodyguarding, religious consultation, and magic consultation respectively. Haskel Stonearse and Darsk both saved his life, although we don't know if it was at the same time or on two separate occasions.

Anybody see the new episode friday?

Yep. Watched it with the husband last night. It was filler, but filler that quoted both Moby Dick and Wrath of Khan (hint: same quote) so I am totally okay with this.

I hate labels like "mythic", "epic", and "legendary." Do you want more content for levels 15-20? How about levels 21-30? If you want 20+ what would be a reasonable level cap?

Personally, I figure 30 is a good level cap. It works for fourth ed anyway and yeah, the entire point of Pathfinder is that it's not fourth ed, but that doesn't mean they don't have any good ideas.

Does this mean we'll get poetry at every major holiday? /is hopeful

Rough build suggestion:

Str: 8 (0), Dex: 18 (5), Con: 12 (2), Int: 18 (13 + 1 from 4th level), Wis: 12 (2), Chr: 6 (-2)

Wait, aren't 8s worth -2 in the Pathfinder point buy system? *is confused*

After reading the Player's Guide, I'm tempted to play a gnomish detective type who travels around with freak show menageries. I haven't quite decided whether to make him a sorcerer or a rogue yet.

Holy cow. That sounds awesome.

I want to see how far my team can get with Serpent's Skull before we try this one, but the fiance and I have been talking about what we want to play when we eventually do this one and he's definitely going for an whip-wielding inquisitor (I think he's going to do what that other guy is doing and base him off that guy from Castlevania) and I have fallen in love with the revised gunslinger for my next AP GMPC.

Also, I really like the campaign idea.

I am having SO MUCH FUN running this campaign. It's seriously ridiculous. And so is everyone else as far as I can tell. Although the campaign is crazy full now. I started off with four players I had to cajole into joining (and one "maybe" that didn't show up the day of the first game) and I'm now at seven. Yes, SEVEN. We had one guy join to play his first game while the original four were meeting to finish their rolling together, then the games club secretary decided he wanted in while everyone else was fighting the goblin constructs and rolled up a monk by the end of combat (which would be the amnesiac one), and then the guy who'd been a "maybe" decided he still wanted to play and since he's one of my two best friends I let him.

So yeah. Our motley crew of Pathfinders/superheros is such:

SAM -- Ten-year-old Pokemon summoner. No, really. His eidolon is Bulbasaur. His other summons have pokemon fluff over their Summon Monster I stats. Which basically means that at one point we had Pidgey kill a zombie.
SISTER MARINA -- Flying nun, which translates to cleric of GOD. Her player is the only other girl in this group group besides me (the DM), which is weird because I'm actually used to gaming groups which are roughly equal in the distribution of the sexes. It's her first D20 game, but she's doing pretty good!
DAMIEN (AND TORA) -- Druid and leopard companion. Accidentally set an orchard on fire due to bad rolling. Ooops.
FRITZ -- Rogue. Resents the ten-year-old because he doesn't like being forced to "babysit." Very acrobatic, believes himself to be awesome. Makes Gary facepalm a lot.
JENSEN -- Fighter. The guy who joined while the others were rolling. Wanted to have a polearm so we gave him a halberd. Is only just starting to get the hang of this.
TACO -- The amnesiac monk. Was working at a country taco stand called Tacos Goliath when he got recruited. Gary suggested we call him Goliath. The other PCs decided he was named Taco.
FRANK -- Draconic bloodline sorceror. Also a file clerk, although I've been calling him a file cleric because his player misspelled it on the character sheet. (This would be the good friend I let join in on the second session.)

Could you specify your setting? Present time modern world with monsters? What kind of monsters, what kind of important background organisations? (CIA, Acolytes of Nyarlathotep, Evil Space Nazi Spies from Mars...)

Present time modern word.

The campaign background is that about twenty years ago, Baba Yaga's door to Earth was discovered in the wilds of Irrisen and a bunch of Evil creatures who hadn't been able to amass enough territory for themselves on Golarion (due to Evil overcrowding) went through, because hey, new world to conquer.

A small group of Celestials noticed this eventually (by which I mean after about four or five years) and decided to chase after them. However, when the Celestials got here, they realized that more baddies than they'd thought had come through and they were all spread out all over earth and they were powerful enough by now that the Celestials couldn't take the weakest one-on-one. And taking each on as a group meant they'd be spending a LONG time taking them down.

And then the leader of the Celestials, after reading some comics (and okay, watching some Sailor Moon too), came up with an idea: recruit native Earthlings to help. They worked out how to empower said Earthlings in order to take down magical beings--because guns don't work on goblins or dragons--and then each of the Celestials picked a location with a bad guy (or group of bad guys) to raise their team in. Lather, rinse, reapeat.

At the start of our campaign, the Celestial who now calls himself Gary has just shown up in Corpus Christi, Texas, and is busy recruiting his fourth such team of heroes: the PCs.

ANYWAY, while there is a normal CIA, there aren't Evil Space Nazi--though there might be Elder God Cultists. There is a Pathfinder Society on Earth, sort of, because the leader of the Celestials was a big fan of the Society and decided that their hero teams would be named "Pathfinders" in their honor.

So I'm running a modern-ish Pathfinder game at my college--the basic premise is that they're using their fantasy character classes as super powers to fight monsters--and one of my players decided he wanted to play his monk as having amnesia. And he's allowing me to come up with the character's history which he has forgot.

Yeah. He'll probably regret this.

I've got some vague ideas, but nothing concrete, and I'm hoping there might be something one of you guys might toss out that sparks my brain to work better.

What we know about the monk is this: that he killed someone and felt guilty about it (which led to the amnesia), that he's a devout Catholic, and that he was working at a taco stand when the other PCs encountered him.

We've had our second session now. The NPCs are still alive. Aerys got her berries and shared her poetry, which seemed to spark an idea in our fighter, Ben, who started working on his OWN poetry to eventually show to Sasha. Poor guy had a 7 CHA as his dump stat, so actually talking to her didn't help. The poetry did, however, once he'd rolled sufficiently high on his craft check and they are currently sleeping together, to the chagrin of Ben's sister Val, the party rogue.

Sadly, Val is not getting on so well with the NPCs. At all. There is mutual bad blood between her Jask, mostly due to the fact that Ben and Val were transporting him as prisoner back to Sargava and Val was very much the Bad Cop of the pair and was rather, ah, threatening at times. Probably the fact that she kept his weapon even after Jask got the rest of his stuff didn't exactly help.

Things aren't exactly good with Sasha either (combination of Sasha's annoyance at Val for repeatedly pinging her with pebbles for the lulz and Val thinking Sasha was annoying from the start, even before she was sleeping with her brother), plus Ishirou is a little annoyed at her currently for giving her bad advice. And she doesn't get along with Gelik, but to be fair NO ONE likes Gelik, not even the other NPCs.

Well. At least Aerys sort of likes her.

(... and as Ben told her when she was being a bit emo at the end of the session, at least the people actually do anything--by which he meta-gamely meant other the PCs--actually like her.)

Roll up a fighter with her. It was my first class and a good starting class in general. Do most of the number crunching yourself, but make sure she figures out the fluff and decides her own race and weapon style.

If you've got your heart set on a module, Carnival of Tears looks like it would be fun. I would totally play it.

Ignore people's generalization about what female gamers supposedly like. We all have variable tastes, the same as male gamers.

mrofmist wrote:

Biichama wrote:

Things that can be played while drunk may be helpful.

Problem is, you'll need to find strippers and hookers that also are into gaming, or can dm.

I know of a few in Indianapolis, if you happen to be in the area:)

Sadly, we're in California.

I'm in a couple of games as a player, as well as running some. And the ones I am running usually have a GMPC because I want to play along with the players and/or we needed a gap filled. But to be fair, one of the other GMs does the same thing.

MY HOMEBREWED CAMPAIGN (BIWEEKLY)
is a bit overpowered on purpose

Beatrice the Golden (my GMPC) -- Sylph witch with a trickery patron, was kidnapped for a few sessions by her "father" (a necromancer lich, long story) to provide an adventure hook for the PCs. Was shamelessly named after the main character from my favorite VN. Chaotic Goodish. Is the adopted aunt of...

Sophia Aeremar-- Half-Celestial elf inquisitor whose father was the (rather swishy) Archangel Raphael. Has recently acquired a single member cohort from said father, an Arbiter named Akriel. Is officially Lawful Stupid due to GM bribery.

Dragsa Frostaxe -- Half-dragon barbarian/sorcerer who talks in hulk speak and is afraid of Sophia's father. A running joke is that the bad guys will be able to track us by the trail of quarter dragons left behind. Chaotic Good.

Rikkard de Carabas and his eidolon, Silla-Mima -- Human summoner, beloved of the homebrewed setting's cat goddess. His eidolon is actually a lesser form of that cat goddess. Chaotic Good.

Grolin -- Dwarven rogue, exceptionally greedy. Has already been brought back from the dead once. Is infamous for starting the whole disgusting trend of him and Dragsa relieving themselves on dead enemies. Chaotic neutral.

THE FLOCK (WEEKLY):
a campaign at my school in which we all can fly, sort of

Fabrillo and the Boulder -- Halfling roc-riding paladin and his pet roc. Not very smart. Only male PC (one of the female PCs is played by the other male player.) The roc can talk!

Morgana and Pebble -- Human (I think) druid and her roc animal companion. She sometimes animal shapes into very large birds. Pebble and the Boulder were nestmates.

Luz (me!) -- Gnome sorcerer (draconic bloodline), will be able to fly on her own power once she hits 15th level, until then she hitches a ride with Fabrillo.

???? -- Halfling rogue whose player didn't show up to the first session, so we're saying she's on a solo mission and will be catching up with us. Will be riding a flying clockwork dragonheaded duck when she does show, though.

FRIEND'S MAIN STAR WARS CAMPAIGN (WEEKLY):
is starting up again after a twenty-year time skip, first iteration was set during ANH

Roxaine -- Ex-Imperial Human tech/soldier. Used to be a mechanic on the prison ship the rest of the party met on, is now a starship captain with her own ship. Has self-healing force powers. Likes to bandage people with duct tape.

Zach (GMPC) -- Keldar Force Adept, has "adopted" Roxy as a daughter-figure. Is extremely old, but doesn't look it. May have accidentally nearly genocided a species at one point. Married to a pretty twi'lek.

Vidra -- Ewok scoundrel. Was kidnapped by Rodians and spent the first iteration of the campaign desperately trying to get home. Masterminded the Ewok Industrial Revolution when he finally got there.

Lalla (me!) -- Wookie Jedi Guardian, was field-promoted from padawan when her master died in the clone wars, finally became a real jedi after meeting Yoda. Eventually settled on Endor with Vidra to help with the E.I.R.

FRIEND'S CRACKED OUT STAR WARS CAMPAIGN (VERY INFREQUENT):
PCs are children stranded on Earth during the 80s

Jeff (GMPC) -- Babysitter droid. Tries to keep us out of trouble and make sure we eat things other than candy.

Pazuzu (me!) -- Gungan princess. Daughter of Jar Jar Binks. Currently in favor of conquering and enslaving the Earth if anything happens to...

Fortunata -- Twi'lek gunslinger and former slave. Has been kidnapped by the sinisterly French Dr Pierre Pierre and his CIA minions. Until she's rescued her player is also running...

Beretta -- Crazy awesome secret service agent, who is currently trying to help Jeff and Pazuzu recover Fortunata.

THE SHADOWRUN GAME (BI-WEEKLY)
which is done alternating with our Reign game

Zakari Makarov -- Cyborg elf one-woman army/street doc. Extremely badass.

Akane Levy (me!) -- Ork face/stunt driver. Don't eat her cookies.

Mho -- Troll mage. May have a future as a delivery boy.

The Ninja -- Dwarf ninja, has a name but I can't think of it at the moment. Likes to play Spiderman. Will probably join Mho in his delivery business.

The REIGN GAME (BI-WEEKLY):
which is set in Dark Sun and has become increasingly silly

James Fightmaster -- Arthurian knight type as well as pyromaniac. Enjoys getting in bar fights and losing them.

Svii -- Desert elf, used to speak in two word sentences but her common is better now. Basically Rambo.

Elvira (me!) -- Alien shoemaker who is trying to take over the world through fashion. Weapon specialities: stiletto heels and pervy thoughts.

And there's a Serpent's Skull campaign, but I already listen that in that part of the message board.

How many people are we talking about here?

Anywhere from five to fifteen people, depending who can come and such. Probably closer to the lower end of the scale.

The players initially made friends with Sasha by getting her the baby dimorphodon (which should have been an egg, I know, but I made a mistake there), but if the party rogue doesn't stop pinging her with pebbles when her back is turned, she might get surly again. (Sigh.)

Has anyone done anything with this trait?

I am getting ready to run this and If someone takes this trait I want to have a couple ideas ready. I am frankly stumped so I am turning to you.

What have you done with this trait?

What cargo do you think the trait holder is protecting?

How might this trait fit remaign important throughout the campaign?

Two of my PCs took this trait, as well as being colonials and boarding in Cheliax (they took Extra Traits as a feat) so I did the same thing Vigil did and had the cargo be Jask. So even though we left the rest of the NPCs at the base camp, they still have Jask following after them all of the time.

So I'll be getting married in about a month and I'm trying to persuade a friend of mine to run a one-session game for a possible joint bachelor/bachelorette party. (Most of our friends are gamers.) Anyway, I've been telling said friend that I totally want an all-goblin all-bard game, but that's mostly just me messing with him. I'm actually looking for suggestions, though, as for what kind of game to get him to run. Things that can be played while drunk may be helpful.

Syrius Black wrote:

MinstrelintheGallery wrote:

SO what feats should a level 10 cavalier have? Mount Combat, ride-by attack, spirited charge and power attack obviously, but what of the other two? (three if human)

I'd think the Old Spice Man would go Cockatrice all the way, which opens some options for Dazzling Display and related 'I'm better than you feats,' no?

He'd probably have an 18 in charisma too.

He's Old Spice Man. He'd have 18s in everything and his dice would always roll 20s.

Just started this one today! Since I've only got three players, I rolled up a GMPC to hopefully even the odds a little. So we have:

Calliope -- The GMPC. Cleric of Gozreh, was helping transport halfling slaves out of Chelliax via the Bellflower network, but they left to become pirates in the Shackles.

Kilroy -- Gnome Archivist Bard, came aboard in the Shackles, has a scholarly interest in the Mwangi Expanse, has proved surprisingly useful in lecturing monsters.

Valentina (Val) and Benedict (Ben) -- Brother and sister bounty-hunting team (she's a sniper rogue and he's a fighter) who were bringing Jask in on behalf of the Sargavan government.

So far they have made friends with everyone but Ishirou (and even he's indifferent), warmed up enough to Jask to take his manacles off and after a couple of days even gave him back most of his stuff, and got Sasha her baby dinosaur. (They also killed the other baby dinosaurs in the nest for meat. And the mommy dinosaur. And a snake and the bats I threw at them. Okay, I don't think they actually ate the bats, but they probably would have tried.) They also explored the Jenivere and two of the other ships, though sadly not the interesting ones.

I'm hoping to get them to the Brine Demon next session.

Hm. I have to say I'm liking Ryuugan's better, especially if it could be taken multiple times.

What, you don't want special mind powers to grant you those skill points? What kind of man am I marrying?

INT 13 requirement for Ryuugan's feat, I would think.

What does the plot require?

What makes for the best story?

I'd let the PCs ride a hummingbird if it made sense to move the story in that direction.

Role-play the interaction out, roll a neat "wandering monster" check of . . . a red dragon. "Son, I've gotta put you down and go kick Smaug's butt. Good luck on your quest."

... actually, I was planning on having a red dragon in all this. Momma Dragon will give them a lift... but in return she needs her son and his friends to do a favor for her. The kind that involves helping to defeat the red wyrm that stole her horde when she was away on business.

Heheheheheh.

It is left up to the GM to decide what is a reasonable amount of volume.

Heh. As it so happens, I am that GM. Maybe if they crafted themselves either a wicker balloon basket or a sort of wooden box or...

Wait. The barbarian has a wagon that he's been hauling their gear in. By which I mean he's pulling it himself. (With the half-dragon thing and rolling high, his strength is ridiculous.) Could she carry that wagon in her claws?

Say you have an adult, huge-sized silver dragon who is quite friendly to your party (by virtue of being the half-dragon barbarian's mother.) Is it possible for her to give some or all of your PCs a lift on her back if it were an emergency? (Assume five PCs of normal size, one of which could fly on her own if need be.)

I got into tabletop gaming fairly recently, actually, so my first character isn't even a year old! The secretary of my school's gaming club was planning on running the 3.5 Red Hand of Doom module using the Pathfinder system and was looking for people to fill out the party and since I've wanted to learn tabletop for years I asked if I could join. So he helped me roll up a dwarf fighter (who I named Sigurd) to be the party Tank and was very patient with my confused flailing and I ended up loving Pathfinder muchly. We're still playing the RHoD campaign, actually, since he only runs it when school is in session.

Sigurd--or Siggi as I've been calling her--ended up taking on a life of her own starting from the second session. I had some rather strict notions of what Lawful Good meant when starting out, so when the Chaotic Neutral sorcerer of the party ended up killing our captives I got all Paladin-ish on him and and he wanted to know why, if my character had been supposedly been fighting so long as to have reached fifth level, I was so innocent of "real" combat. So I ended up coming up with this whole backstory about how the Dwarven city she came from had been at peace for generations, so instead of training soldier and warriors it instead had a lot of tournament fighting and that Siggi had been the local champion until last year and that this was actually her first real adventure.

And after that she just kind of evolved into this really girly, genki character who might be wearing leather and chainmail and carrying a big, sharp axe, but by gum it was all color-coordinated! She still writes her parents almost every other night and sends part of her loot home and her best friends in the party are the elf and the half-orc.

I had a campaign with lots of lycanthropes too, so I can understand how you feel.

[snip snip]

The problem is, I need more information on his personality. You told what he is, not who he is. Having a wild bison as an animal companion though tells me he isn't predatory, so Lion or Puma might not be the best choice, but both would fit the prairie idea, as they can both be found in grasslands. I am tempted most by Rhinoceros to tell the truth. Who wouldn't be intimidated by even the thought that the guy can turn into a natural freight train? Yeah, put Rhino down as a first choice here.

Tell us more about his personality and habits, those are going to help you find and animal more then his class and animal companion.

... yeah. That probably would be more useful data than what I gave you.

Hokay. So the thing about Oengus is he really just wants to be left alone. I don't know if I'd quite call him apathetic, but... well, people sometimes react to failure in different ways, you know? And it was a pretty damning failure. Not only did he and his partner, Macavite, get righteously spanked by the Evil Overlord and barely escaped by the skin of their teeth--hell, they didn't even get past his front door due to the big old JABBERWOCK guarding it--but immediately afterwards their Mysterious Quest-Giving Old Dude showed up to berate them for going off to fight the guy before they were properly leveled, er, prepared.

So Oengus basically dealt with his failure at saving their country by withdrawing from the people. He's pretty much a hermit these days and he's got a pretty cynical view of human nature and the way the world works. Sure, they'll call you a hero, but if you try to save them and fail, you're nothing to them. Why even bother?

People suck and they're ungrateful. It's a lot easier to hide out on the prairie communing with your auroch then actually try to deal with them.

So basically, he's Eeyore and has been for the last, oh, twenty-five years or so.

(Oengus was a little more social and upbeat during his actual hero days, but even then he was kind of a stick-in-the-mud, especially compared to Macavite. Like, the serious stoic muscle guy to Macavite's Parker Lewis Ferris Bueller type. They were mercenaries before they got convinced to try giving the hero thing a try.)

ANYWAY, I hope that is enough to be helpful. I actually like your wererhino idea a lot. It feels right.

I'd go with werebear myself, but if you want to make something up and are considering non-predators, consider werestag (based on elk or any large sort of deer.) That goes along with the whole Horned God mythology and seems like a decent protector type.

Werebison is more of a prairie-appropriate animal, I guess.

His second favored terrain is deciduous forest, so stag could work. (I'm not entirely opposed to werebears, but it might frighten the Auroch.)

Daemons animal companions made out of your soul! Wait, no. That's Phillip Pullman.

I just pronounce them "daimon", with a short "a", to distinguish them.

See, that just makes me think of Sailor Moon and makes me wonder if the Daemons are after your pure heart crystals.

So I'm running my first campaign ever and it's in a self-created world in which, among other things, there is a sizable natural lycanthrope population. It's your basic Defeat The Evil Overlord And Save The Kingdom deal, though I've hopefully got enough twists to make it interesting. We played our first campaign last Thursday and the players seem to be enjoying it. Anyway, I'm trying to get stuff for later sessions prepared before the end of my winter break, which brings me to the matter I need advice on.

Two of the NPCs I plan to have my players encounter once they've leveled up sufficiently are a pair of lycanthrope Failed Heroes who tried defeating said Evil Overlord and got their butts righteously spanked because they were unprepared (ie didn't level up enough first.) The first of the two, Macavite, I've got mostly figured out. (He's a chaotic neutral weretiger Rogue/Bard/Arcane Trickster who is trying to become a god.) It's the second, Oengus, who I need advice on. Basically, I need to figure out what kind of werecreature the guy is.

Oengus is, as it says in the subject, a ranger/druid/nature warden. He started out as a ranger for his first four levels, did three levels of druid, and then prestiged classed into nature warden. Alignment-wise he's true neutral. His animal companion is an auroch named Oleary, his favored enemy is monstrous humanoid, and his favored terrain is the prairie. None of the pre-made lycanthrope types in the bestiaries seem to fit him--though the werebear comes closest--but I can't seem to figure out what kind of werething he should be otherwise. (Wererabbit? Weresheep? Werecow?)

So. Advice?

Middle-aged academic dad and college-aged daughter looking to start or join a gaming group in Boerne, Texas. Two experienced players, one experienced DM/GM. Role-players, not roll players. Setting negotiable. Non-smokers with cats.

Preferably D&D 5th edition. Will also consider Pathfinder or Swords & Wizardry Complete.

Mike Welham has been doing all the heavy lifting while I was MIA for months at time, but now I'm trying to be [almost] regularly blogging again. So, here is the latest from MPR: The Classical Elements and World-Building.

And now for an anti-climatic announcement! This is my blog. Just as work has sucked away all the time I used to spend on Paizo, it has also taken most of the time I spent blogging.

RPG Superstar 2012 Mike Welham stepped in and began a Friday creature feature, then he put the pedal to the mental metal and created a monster for each day of the A-Z blogging challenge. Here you will find some wonderful offerings for your Pathfinder game, many with some surprising extras tied-in at the end.

Check out Mike's monsters!

A great track record. And folks who can't get enough of Mike Welham's work need to check out this feature on my blog: Mythopoeic Rambling. He's churning out the monstrous goodness for your Pathfinder game.

Really sad, just saw his demise on a PBS news ticker. Thanks for everything, Mr. Sendak. Especially that nightmare I had after the first time I read Where the Wild Things Are. I think I was in 2nd grade.
+RIP.

This problem has reached the critical point. A line must be drawn. Support must be rallied. Racism must not be tolerated.

The hatred has got to stop. Now. Gnomes are demi-human, too, dammit. I don't know if it's going to take therapy, re-education, a couple of weeks staying at James Jacobs' house, or death threats, but whatever it is, we've got to do it. Take a good, long look at yourself, Jeremy. Embrace the inner gnome within.

I thought we had a general thread for this, and all I found with the BILLY! thread I started. This should be more useful.

Adventure Time, the most D&D carton ever, had for a long time an implied setting in a post-apocalyptic world. That setting has sense been made explicit. The cause of the apocalypse was the Great Mushroom War.

Here's a fact that recently struck me: I can only think of three characters that are good candidates for having lived before the Apocalypse, and one of those is absolutely certain.

Those are the only characters I can think of as surviving from before the current age of the Land of Ooo. Anybody have any observations about this or anything else in series?

I learned this when I was little kid, watching Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, but I didn't want to play dwarves in FRPGs until I was an adult. Just sitting here, looking at the Dwarf Fighter (looks more like a Dwarf Champion, to me) mini from PFB: Heroes & Monsters, I gotta say: Dwarves are Awesome.

Discuss.

Mmm...as I pull the plastic off and open the brick boxes...this must be what crack smells like.

The dragon is beautiful, but I shall save her for last.

Anybody in the Seattle area ever go there? Their walls are decorated with dungeon maps for the month of January. The artist, Tony, is a cool guy.

Dusk Kamadan: Well played, Paizo. Well played.

All I know.

Who's heard about it?

Who knows anything about it?

Thanks!

I received my two books fine, but the invoice and new catalog were missing from it. Just thought you should know, but also, I really would like a copy of the new catalog.
THANKS!
M.

Lilith's cool gnew avatar?

The votes have been tabulated.

It's been getting lots of discussion in other places, but I thought it could use its own thread over here. What do people think? My own rather personal reactions are below.

Elmore looks like he knows how to throw a punch. Hopefully you got a permanent scar so you can show it to people from now on.

Let's
Go to
The ENnies

...

Let's
Go see
The stars!

how 'BOUT those MAV-RICKS?

I brought tostadas.

I just ran across this blog's idea for a game mechanic for those who might be inspired to run a heist in their game. It's untested, but seems like worth a look.

HALF-a-dozen tabs open? I didn't think we had that many slackers around here.

Frank Mentzer has never been one of my go-to designers, getting real active in TSR a little late for me, but he sure seems like a good guy and gives some nice reminiscences in this podcast.

Well, it looks like it is time to open up a discussion thread for this. Keep in mind that I am going to be in surgery Monday and in recovery for awhile, so please be patient if it takes me a while to get back to your questions.

If you have not gone to download the S&W Core Rules, draft of 4th printing, you might want to do so. I know Matt Finch is getting close to releasing the 4th printing, and I'm not sure if there will be a period of time when the draft and the new printing are both unavailable in download during transition or not, but I figure it is better to be safe than sorry. When the actual 4th printing is available for download, I'll provide a link.

Overtime, I'll migrate text from FB and DB over here, especially once it has achieved something of a more final form.

Also, it occurred to me that now I am going to have to deal with a spoilers on the blog, so I think I will make two pages now. "THE DUNGEON OF GAME-MASTERY" will be off-limits to players thenceforth, so if anybody has a good suggestion for a name for the Player Page, let me know.

I say the best one is on the bottom of page 51. What are others' impressions?

So, looking through the submissions page for this year's ENnies, I only see two submissions for Paizo products. That can't be right! I believe this is the last week to get submissions in. Why torture us like this? Suspense-building? Last minute blitzkrieg planned to throw off the competition? Erik sleeping off his birthday slider coma has thrown off entry schedule?

I've got to ask about something my friends and I have been seeing in Dallas for the past month, maybe two. We are seeing large numbers of Judges Guild products for D&D and Traveller, mostly, although also for Runequest, Dragonquest, and Trolls & Tunnels. We're talking periodicals, modules, and supplements, mostly from around 1979-1980. Maybe a third of them are still wrapped in plastic. This is not just at Half Price Books, but also at least one other independent used bookstore.

There has got to be a story behind this. Is anybody seeing this anywhere outside of Dallas, Texas? Any facts? Speculation?

::Mounts a clearly lettered, "DO NOT PUSH" sign beside the jolly, candy-like button, then exits::

Paizonians, attend!

If you know not of The Audio Science Fiction Magazine, I bring you tidings of one of the greatest podcasts ever!

That Great Old One

COOL!

Thanks for blog. :D

I'm not so much taking a poll, as interesting as that may be, as asking, Is there a correct pronunciation of Coeurl? If van Vogt never gave a pronunciation, was there a consensus of how staff said it in-house?

Guidance here will remove a little pebble that has been wearing in the shoe of mind for some time. Why did I wait so long to ask?

You know you belong in this thread if you know who you are. All other MB personality types posting in here will be tacitly admitting that Champions are the Champions, and they just wished they were Champions, too.

Thanks, Crystal!

Anybody know the size category of this dragon?

...and, of course, take advantage of some of the sales?

I got Realms of Crawling Chaos by Goblinoid Games.

Please share your booty!

Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, leader of Libya, is regularly referred to as Col. Gaddafi. This never made any sense to me. What kind of colonel leads a country? What kind of autocrat has only the military rank of colonel?

Or maybe, just maybe, a Kentucky Colonel gained control of Libya in 1969. What would it mean for a peer of Col. Harland Sanders to have come to power in a North African country? Sounds like an awesome alternative Earth to me that would make a strong campaign setting. Just imagine!

I think this deserves a thread of its own: Mrs. Aberzombie has been admitted to the hospital.

Congrats, my friend! Update us when you have more news.

Thank you!

Also, I sure did love the iPhone wallpapers that came out way, way back when.

:)

Black Gate, the wonderful Sword & Sorcery publisher, has published an article on Paizo, focusing on the Rise of the Runelords AP, on their website (linked above). It seems a little late in the game, but is really cool. When two great companies come together, it's a beautiful thing.

Why can I not add anything to my default wishlist, of the same name?
:-(

Happy Birthday, Lisa! Thanks for all you give us! May you enjoy a very rich and full celebration, and another year of life and blessings!
Many happy returns!

Wow! Where's the time gone?

Dear Cosmo and Mysterious Packing Genii:
My poster arrived today in beautiful condition. I can't help but notice the excellent care of its packing. :D
Thanks!
M.

I don't know how I overlooked it, but Ryan D. is going to be around throughout RPGSS'11 as a judge. This looks like the perfect opportunity for unabashed fan-boyism! Thread initiated.

Congrats to you all!

Just got this and tried it for the first time Friday night. Anybody else have any experiences with it?

This week has been hard on classic sci-fi cinema. (First Leslie Nielson, then Irvin Kershner?) Thanks for the best SW movie of all time, Mr. Kershner.