Bill Redford's page

Bill Redford wrote:

This looks cool. Any chance there will be a print version?

Maybe! Though I'd wager not in the near-term future.

However, since it has been really well-received, it is possible we could do an expansion with a print-on-demand option (probably though Kickstarter).

Cool. I would be in for that kickstarter, I backed "In the Company of Dragons" and it looks like a very high quality book.

An expanded book on vampires is something I would definitely use... As well as an "In the company of Lycanthropes... " :)

This looks cool. Any chance there will be a print version?

Slim Jim's Laundromat, a continent-spanning franchise, in which for mere coin the commoner will load his soiled, fraying duds into marvelous machines which will treat them with Clean (Mending +75cp). -- Never be inconvenienced by stubborn stains or tears ever again! Phosphate-free and environmentally-friendly with no waste runoff.

:) How much is the franchise fee?

Bill Redford wrote:

Crops
With spells like create Demi plane, you could have crops that crow all year long...

By Ilúvatiar! If these crops don't stop crowing, I'm going to "plant" my foot in some spellcaster's arse!

:) Its a small price to pay for year long sweet corn...

Debnor wrote:

Remember that the farming-demiplanes also require another, expensive spell -- Permanancy. Food would not suddenly become a right for all - those able to afford to set up these areas would charge as much as the market would bear.

I have a hard time imagining create demiplane ever being used for farming. A 13th level wizard would have to cast it 11 times to create a one acre plot of land at a cost of almost 200,000gp in permanency components. An acre just isn't providing 200,000gp worth of food anytime soon, the math doesn't pencil out.

There is some discussion here about how much food you got out of an acre of land with medieval methods, but it doesn't sound like much. The wizard's 200,000gp investment wouldn't be enough land to support even the wizard himself, let alone a society large enough to produce the occasional 13th level wizard.

Remember this is a game where a loaf of bread costs 2cp. Spending literally ten million times that to get an acre of land isn't a good investment.

Fair point. I don't know if in a place where magic becomes very common if the prices to produce it might not become less, but either way its a fair point. a 13th level wizard should probably never be that common place...

So along those lines, what other spells or magic do you think would become common place and replace mundane services.

Magic mirrors that can show things that are connected by other magic mirrors... like a television system.

Construction
Summoner construction companies that summon specialized summons list creatures to build or demolish.

Indeed. I think my original thought was "what kinds of things would you find in a very magic heavy society. I guess magic heavy could have different meanings.

I would say that Magic heavy here would mean magic is very common place. and most day to day is magic based. That said I would put common magic (say 0 level) is everywhere. Most places and people have access to such common magic. The higher you go up the more training and thus more expense is involved. A 0 level caster might work for the equivalent of a fast food place, or low level service job. The highest level may be executives at a company or heads of government.

The alcohol example I used above. The Brew Mages... I used this is a game in a home brew world. This is a guild, low level brew mages are the entry level blue collar workers. The highest level are Master Artisans whose works demand top dollar and are celebrities of reknown invited to exclusive parties and hobnob with royalty...

"Being deliberately provocative, are we?

OK then, in this (arguably real) world, people judged as deficient are sidelined and often sequestered. Go talk to any of the groups trying to get support for special needs. Look how poorly we do it even in the wealthy nations. You think it will be any different in your posited world?

The inability to sense magic will be analogous to blindness or deafness in being able to recognize magic environmental threats. If flight is the norm, then stairs and walkways are just inefficiencies, unless you are one of the few who need them...."

No, not really. I can see a world take this stance though. If your only chance to succeed is based on magic, then yes you would only want children that excel in it...

But it could also become a Star Trek like Utopian society where you only have to work if you want to... Of the 2, the first is probably a more interesting setting conflict wise.

I thought Ebberon was rich in low level magic but high level magic was rare? So in such a world there'd be streets illuminated with magical light sources but no demiplanes just for growing crops.

I was giving Ebberon as an example with magic lights and magic sky ships and trains... but outside of Eberron, what would you find in a really magic heavy place.

yeah breaking the law would be very hard to get away with.

Yeah I can see fetish shops becoming popular. You can appear as specific people or even undead or animals.. all manner of perversions.

Alcohol
You can age that bourbon 7 years over night.

So then those who show no talent for magic get tossed aside, banished or killed at birth. Interesting...

This is a discussion on how magic would shape life in a magic rich world.

Eberron had some good ideas like magic carpet taxi and magical street lights.

So 1st I would say

Crops
With spells like create Demi plane, you could have crops that crow all year long, are secure from bugs and raiders/ thieves, and have limited access to only those you want. Plus they don't take up valuable land that you can use to expand your city.... Plus the area is no longer limited by natural features or weather conditions. You could have tasty secure crops all year long.

Transportation
Flying Cauldrons and brooms of flying. Wealthy noble children now have extreme sports involving personal conveyances. I can see drag races or just cruising around town in your pimped out flying ride...

Balls/parties
Alter self can make your hair/clothes and even you look different. I can see shops dedicated to alteration magic.

Culture
Prestidigitation can create objects that last for an hour and can heat and season them. So you could make food that tastes good and only lasts an hour that does not provide nourishment and thus does not make you fat. Noble Bulimics would find use for this...

Anyone one have any other thing that would fit here? What is your idea for a decadent magic based society?

Good afternoon,

I have A VMC question. If you multiclass with another class that has feats that are restricted by class and level, do you qualify for them?

For instance if you are a Rogue, and use the variant multiclass rules to multi-class with fighter. Do you qualify for weapon specialization? And if so at what level?

I don't see any mention of it in Pathfinder Unchained, and the FAQ is very light (1 question).

Thank you,

I'd like to see some more minion type creatures like:

1. Drow house soldier (monster codex pg. 35)
2. Drow Matron (monster codex pg. 39)
3. Lizard folk Champion mounted on triceratops (monster codex pg. 145)
4. Female orc Scout (monster codex pg. 169)
5. Gorthek (monster codex pg. 172)
6. Vampire seducer (monster codex pg. 239)
7. Death Initiate (NPC codex pg. 209)
8. Bar maid (NPC codex pg. 243)
9. squire (NPC codex pg. 251)

I would also like a generic ghoul or vampire minion in armor, but cant find any good art for either.)

I really liked the dragon sets. I was hoping there would be a blue evolution set (as blue are my favorites...)is there any chance or are the evolution sets dead?

I loved the Goblin set and both Dragon evolutions. The Red Dragons were my favorite, but the white were cool too. I hope you don't stop the evolution sets. I would love a Blue, Black and Green set. I would even love the Metalics as evolutions, even though I would get less utility out of them as antagonists...

I like the pathfinder minis as a whole... but... Sometimes the releases just don't mesh with my game.... I don't normally do demons, so a set that is mostly demons or devils is lost on me... Also undead... I have plenty of undead, so did not need more...

The Goblin set was perfect... If there were sets like that for some other "common" monster races I would be all about them... Orcs, Gnolls, Bugbears, Barbarian raiders, elven war party, Bad humans (knight, foot soldier, archer, wizard, leader), etc...

I played the blood rager. With abbé rant bloodline I focused on combat reflexes for the extra reach attack of opportunity goodness. The melee was good. I was dealing solid damage and got several attacks each round on top of my normal attacks.

As mentioned above, the spell casting was limited. Most of the time a straight attack was a better option than casting and there were so few spells (even with a high charisma) that I did not want to "waste" them. And most of the spells would not have been that affective anyway. I almost think it would be better to just expand the bloodlines to give supernatural abilities than actually spells.

Like sorcerer's rage where each round while raging fire leaps off of you and attacks 1 enemy of your choice for scale able damage. Or while raging you can see invisible, or are immune to fear, or can walk on walls like spider limb, etc. the powers are limited only to your rage per day rounds. So as long as you have rage you can do magical marvels but when rage runs out...

I enjoyed the character but the spell casting was definitely a disappointment.

So here is the review.

I love Asian settings and have pretty much every d20 book available that deals with that part of the world. Because of that, I have been waiting for this book for a long while. I have to say I am more than a bit disappointed.
Now as a disclaimer this is not based on the actual content of the book, but its presentation. Yes I am judging it on how it looks, but its looks affect its readability and usefulness for me.
Art
The cover art is really good, and sets up a high expectation for the art in the book. Unfortunately the book does not contain much art. The art is spread out very thinly and you can go several pages without seeing any. The art that is in the book is on the mediocre side with a few better illustrations... but mostly mediocre. The map on the front page especially looks like a bad photocopy. I have seen plenty of black and white maps that looked good, but this looks like they had a really cool color map and photocopied it at Highs...
Text
The font size is really small compared to most rpgs, and the layout is just a solid block. The sections aren't highlighted in a way to grab attention, so its really like just a solid block of info... It makes finding things just by browsing the book difficult.
Overall
With the lack of pictures the solid text and small font it is very painful to read... More like reading a textbook than a game. Nothing jumps out by just flipping through the book. I am sure the material is great, but I will most likely never get to it. With Pathfinder books usually I will flip through and something will grab my eye... I will read that section and it will inspire me to read another, and so on... With this book, it feels like I would have to set up a study session, have some bright light so I can read the small text, and take notes with page numbers in case I need to go back...
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Bill Redford wrote:

Hi. I just wanted to say that I did make it clear in my review that it is 100% based on how the product looks. I am sure the content is great, but for the reasons in my review, will probably not use it... I will say that If the review (based soley on the layout, font and art)is innapropriate, I will remove it. I normally dont take the time to review books, and usually never on those I dislike, but I was very disapointed in this book. To be fair it could be that the cover art (Wayne Reynolds) put too high an expectation in my mind.

Thank you-
Bill

Bill, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I was really disappointed in your review and thought it belonged in the discussion thread rather than as a review. The thing is, giving a product 1 star when all you even considered was the artwork and layout wasn't fair in the least.

while I like the fact that Paizo has a separate place for reviews and that anyone can do one, I also think that someone thinking about doing a review has some responsibility to put some effort into it, and actually review the whole book. When you review something, customers like me are also evaluating you based on what you bring to the review. Yours, frankly, was not of much value because it didn't really tell the reader much, other than that you didn't like the art. But why? No discussion of what your standards are for art or even that you considered that a WAR cover might have sucked up much of the available art budget. I have no idea how to evaluate your standards because you didn't even tell us which art was ok and which was bad, so the reader knows where you are coming from.

Your upfront admission that you didn't even bother to read the book was an odd choice for a review, and kind of a slap at the authors who, I'm guessing from EZG's review, spent a lot of time putting this together as a labor of love. Don't you think the fair thing would be for you to give it some serious consideration before writing a review? Like I said,...

Michael, I am taking your advice and removing it from the review section. I will post my review here in the messages. I do want to comment on a few point you made. When you buy a product there are many reason you buy that product. Some people buy it for game content, some people buy it for art. If something is wrong with a product, whether its poor editing, or bad art, or unbalanced rules, they should all be fair game in a review. I made it clear that my review was on one facet of the book... That facet was the text, layout and art. In short, what the product looked like. Again, I feel this is an important part of a RPg product... Using the CD analogy another person made, would you buy a Music Cd that came in a torn brown rapper or one that was just in a slip of paper... maybe if it was at a flea market but not full price at the music store... So again packaging and appearance are important... To use the CD analogy again, the Music may have been great, but if the CD itself was warped or had static playing over it, then it does not matter if the music is great... my enjoyment of the product is still the key...

Anyway, I do see your point. If you look at the whole product, Say 25% layout, 25% art, 50& content... The it is unfair of me to give an overall grade based on 50% of the product... So while I think My review was fair based on what part I reviewed, it does not reflect every aspect of the product and So I removed the review...

Hi. I just wanted to say that I did make it clear in my review that it is 100% based on how the product looks. I am sure the content is great, but for the reasons in my review, will probably not use it... I will say that If the review (based soley on the layout, font and art)is innapropriate, I will remove it. I normally dont take the time to review books, and usually never on those I dislike, but I was very disapointed in this book. To be fair it could be that the cover art (Wayne Reynolds) put too high an expectation in my mind.

Thank you-
Bill

Lawrence. Yeah, the reason I thought of using the eidolon progression was to try and keep it balanced. An armor that is good at 1st level will probably not be very good at 10th, and an armor that is good at 10th would probably be godlike at first.

I was think if an Eidolon gets 14 evolution points at 10th level, teh armor may have 5-7.

Enhanced strength
Damage reduction
vent steam (as obscuring mist)
vent steam (as stinking cloud)
Built in weapon water spout (shoot heated water as burning hands)
Enhanced frame (use weapons one size category larger)
Reinforced frame (more hitpoints)

etc...

I will take a look at the d20 Modern. I have the book, but dont think I ever opened it.

Qunnessaa, I will take a look at the section in Ultimate magic. I remember looking at that, but not with thsi in mind.

Kolokotroni. I am not familiar with teh super Genius games prooducts But I will look.

Thanks guys.. To be a little more clear. I want it to be power armor. The concept may have confused things. The concpet is like a cavalier, or knight, but instead of riding on a mount, the power armor takes the place of the mount.

My first thought was to multi-class, Cavalier and summoner... but I kind of wanted the armor to play a bigger role... And I did not want spell casting.

I was going to build something like the eidolon progression but very weakened, and ask the DM if I could replace the mount feature and possibly some other class abilities in exchange...

Good morning,

A frined of mine is starting a pathfinder game in a couple months. I have a concept of playing a dwarf in steam powered armor... based on these awesome miniatures.

http://sciborminiatures.com/pow.php?absol=1&co=i/2013/big/dwarfs_steam_ armor_set_01.jpg

So what I was thinking is making it similar to how teh summoner works... The eidolon has base stats, and an evolution pool it can spend on evolutions.

The power armore would also have a base form, and have an "innovation pool" that can be used to unlock "innovations". Innovations can be things like strength increase, damage reduction, the ability to use larger weapons, built in weapons, etc...

I dont want the power armor to be as powerful as an eidolon, as I dont want to take away from teh summoner, and I want the character to be more martial than a summoner... My concept is like a cavalier, but teh power armor being his mount...

Has anyone done something like this? Any thoughts? Anyone willing to contribute?

Thank you-
Bill