BloodBought's page

In my opinion, it comes down to personal preference to a large degree. I've come up with game ideas in both ways, but personally I find that I usually work best starting with the basic plot idea and then working from there. I like using published campaign settings to help me out with some of the work though because I can usually just browse through areas in campaign books, and find some place that fits the rough idea well enough and just plop the whole story arc down in the appropriate location.

My first campaign, I started out REALLY small. I basically just created a dungeon to run my players through and tried to put in a smattering of interesting encounters. Then based on how they got through that first dungeon and the things they learned (as well as the things *I* learned about their characters and their backstories) I began to branch outward. In many ways, that was still my most successful campaign.

Yeah, Tabletop Gaming is the one I think you're thinking of. Tried there too without much luck so far

I actually live very close to 31st Century games and have checked it out with no luck so far. I think I've been by Pulp once when I was over in Lees summit once before, but it's a bit of a drive. Haven't heard of the other one you listed though, so I might give it a shot. Thanks for the help.

Alright, so it's been nearly 4 years at this point since I've managed to have some steady tabletop action and I'm beginning to get desperate. I live in the Olathe area (just to the Southwest of KC, Kansas). I don't really have any preference as to the system or games played as I am a fan of a wide variety of different game systems. Unfortunately, my biggest hang-up is that the only time I would be reliably free for gaming would be Friday evenings.

I'll save any additional information for if I get any hits here.

To try and get this thing back on topic...

Thanks guys. Interesting, really makes for high powered games I would imagine.

Yes and no. It does definitely make for much more powerful characters in general, but it's also not quite as simple as just doubling the power of the characters since they're still limited to the same number of actions of any other single character. What it primarily gives characters is MUCH more versatility.

BloodBought wrote:

Hammer of the Master Craftsman

I think this one may have been skipped over.

Waving aside the formatting issues, I'm just not sure about this at all. Making the physical item is generally not a part of the crafting process.

Accelerating crafting magic items by a factor of 5 seems like a lot. Now you're pumping out a +2 headband or a Type II bag every day. That's the start of a nice little business.

I'm also not sure how a hammer helps you craft a pearl of power or one of the books. I guess you'd need to adjudicate which items this could be used for on a case-by-case basis, or just hand-wave it and let it work for anything.

The breaking aspect is kind of interesting, but now you're skating close to the line of wondrous item / weapon.

Yeah, the formatting I realized I'd screwed up after I'd already submitted it due to forgetting about the need to include the proper HTML tags for a post.

As to the item itself, as I figured, it's main issue is that while it's 'nifty' it doesn't have enough "Ooomph" behind it. I suspect that'll be borne out in the judges feedback thread too once they finally get to me.

To indulge myself a bit in explaining myself:

1: I wasn't intending the speed-up of crafting mundane items to relate specifically to crafting wondrous items too, it's a separate ability, intended to be useful for crafting various items quickly and easily. Essentially a function of the item to make it also useful in the world at large.

2: I'll admit, I wasn't sure about the speeding up process myself either, but when I was considering the levels at which you'd gain access to the item, I didn't think it was that big of a concern. In addition, I was hoping to provide a means to deal with a (imo) common problem in many adventures, namely that there's not enough time for anyone who wants to be a crafter to effectively craft anything.

3: As for the breaking quality, I knew I was skirting a line there... just felt that the thematic tie was enough that I was hoping that it could be forgiven lol.

I think my biggest failing though was that I got too hung up in writing things using too many words. It could've definitely 'sung' more if I was a more skilled writer lol.

Guess I might as well throw my hat into this area as well. Wouldn't hurt to see some more feedback after all. :)

Hammer of the Master Craftsman

Aura: moderate transmutation
CL: 9th
Slot: -
Price: 28,000gp
Weight: 2 lbs

Description:
The hammer normally appears much like a mundane hammer with Dwarven runes carved into its head. During the act of forging, these runes will glow white hot, even if the hammer itself is still cool.

When crafting a mundane item, or any item crafted using the Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Forge Ring, or Craft Wondrous Item feats, this hammer allows the user to complete his work much more quickly than normal.

While crafting (or repairing) a mundane item using the Hammer of the Master Craftsman, instead of comparing the craft check result (craft check times craft DC) against the item’s value in silver pieces, compare it against the item’s value in gold pieces to determine the amount of progress made.

When crafting an item with the Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Forge Ring, or Craft Wondrous Item feats while utilizing the Hammer of the Master Craftsman, crafting time is determined at a rate of 1 day per 5,000gp of the item’s value instead of 1 day per 1,000gp of the item’s value.

In addition to the above effects, this item may also be used as an improvised hammer in combat (use the stats for a light hammer). Instead of dealing damage, on a successful attack, the attacker may choose to impose the broken condition upon one piece of equipment currently being worn or wielded by the target. There is no save for this effect.

Construction:
Requirements: Craft Wondrous Item, Fabricate, Crafter’s Curse (Advanced Player’s Guide)
Cost: 14,000gp

Hammer of the Master Craftsman

Aura: moderate transmutation
CL: 9th
Slot: -
Price: 28,000gp
Weight: 2 lbs

Description:
The hammer normally appears much like a mundane hammer with Dwarven runes carved into its head. During the act of forging, these runes will glow white hot, even if the hammer itself is still cool.

When crafting a mundane item, or any item crafted using the Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Forge Ring, or Craft Wondrous Item feats, this hammer allows the user to complete his work much more quickly than normal.

While crafting (or repairing) a mundane item using the Hammer of the Master Craftsman, instead of comparing the craft check result (craft check times craft DC) against the item’s value in silver pieces, compare it against the item’s value in gold pieces to determine the amount of progress made.

When crafting an item with the Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Forge Ring, or Craft Wondrous Item feats while utilizing the Hammer of the Master Craftsman, crafting time is determined at a rate of 1 day per 5,000gp of the item’s value instead of 1 day per 1,000gp of the item’s value.

In addition to the above effects, this item may also be used as an improvised hammer in combat (use the stats for a light hammer). Instead of dealing damage, on a successful attack, the attacker may choose to impose the broken condition upon one piece of equipment currently being worn or wielded by the target. There is no save for this effect.

Construction:
Requirements: Craft Wondrous Item, Fabricate, Crafter’s Curse (Advanced Player’s Guide)
Cost: 14,000gp

I suspect I have some ideas as to why my item failed to make the cut, but I'm curious if they match the judges' criticism.

Yeah, what vikking said. I was oh so careful in making sure that I had my formatting and everything spot on in Word and I completely forgot to make sure that I didn't need to utilize HTML code for any of it when I made my post because I was trying to just get the item posted before I ended up getting cold feet and attempting to completely redesign something lol.

So lesson learned... don't get so hyped up to get your submission in that you forget to double and triple-check your final submission lol.

Edit: Don't mind the OCD-ness, I'm an exceptional perfectionist when it comes to doing anything for the purposes of a competition of any sort so I tend to get a little overworked when I make silly mistakes like I prolly did. Not being able to even look at the post and see if what I'd forgotten after submitting it didn't help either lol.

Crap... anyone know if there's a way you can fix such a dumb error like not including the item name in the text body and in the subject line? *grumble grumble*

Edit: Damn damn damn damn! Now I can't remember if I double-checked the formatting of italicizing all the words that needed to get done or not! >.<

Well.. guess there's always next year *cry*

You're thinking of the 'Encounter Traps' (or something similar) from Dungeonscape (ironically a book which was helped in the writing by some of our very own Paizonians). Essentially they were traps that worked more akin to entire encounters. Lemme pull out a quick sample...

Here we go, this simple encounter trap consisted of a room with some sort of desirable objective in the center of it, along with a small pillar with a gem on it. All along the length of the floor run slots. The 'trap' itself actually is sprung when the first PC enters the room, but doesn't act until it's initiative count. This could lead to some awkward surprises for whoever beats the trap on initiative since they then get surprised by the attacking swords springing up and sweeping across the slots. The trap lasts for a set number of rounds, the idea being that the PCs either have to withdraw completely (which hopefully they're already too committed to do that) or proceed in order to reach the gem, which is the power mechanism that will disable the trap and allow them to retrieve the desired object. Essentially, the traps are treated as 'creatures' for the purposes of combat.

Alright, I'm getting to play a summoner for a PbP campaign and I thought I'd use this thread to note my thoughts as I go. Due to the slow nature of PbP, I doubt I'll be able to give too terribly much information, but hopefully it'll be useful to someone.

First of all, for the campaign, I'm playing a LE Human Summoner in an evil campaign where the entire party has been specially selected by Fzoul and Bane himself in the Forgotten Realms. The game starts at level 5. Thus far, I've had a great time role-playing the character and enjoyed it immensely.

No direct mechanical information to report other than some observations I made upon creating my character.

1st: Summoners really have a tough time of finding 'good' 1st level spells based on their current spell list. I personally chose Mage Armor, Daze Monster, Protection from Good, and Grease. Mage Armor is really only useful for buffing my Eidolon though since I am wearing a mithril chain shirt, and the bonus from Mage Armor doesn't help me in that regard. I took Daze and Grease for the ability to have some spells to allow me to do some status effects on enemies. Finally, Protection from Good if nothing else because it gives some protection against mental effects as well as against enemy summons. My choices were actually rather difficult in this range due to the lack of stand-out strong choices. Enlarge Person is a very good buff spell to be sure, but I picked up a wand for it rather than use a spell choice on it. Shield would have been useful except my Eidolon took a feat to be able to use shields and as such, doesn't stack in that regard. Overall, I guess I just feel like they could use some more options in their 1st level spell choices.

2nd: I'm attempting to pattern my Eidolon after a corrupted Earth Elemental of sorts. One thing that would have really allowed me to capture one of the major (imo) distinguishing marks of an elemental would have been some form of immunity or resistance to critical hits/sneak attacks. I realize that full immunity would be too powerful for early stage eidolons obviously, but perhaps some stages of resistances to crits/sneak attacks that build up to immunity as a 4-point evolution would be nice.

Any questions, please ask as I'm sure that there's more information I could give that I just didn't think of.

A suggestion for finding ways to make a Pathfinder game work with low/no magic items would be to check out the d20 derivative game, Iron Heroes. It's a system that's designed around the idea that magic is inherently unreliable and not to be trusted. As a result, PCs rarely get much in the way of magical loot, and definitely not magical loot of the +x variety. It's not a perfect system by any means but it does several things that I think help it to deal with lower magic levels. I'll see about listing some of those when I get access to my books again after the holidays.

Ah of course lol. The answer was so simple I overlooked it! I appreciate the help guys.

Thanks for the responses guys. Something else that occurred to me that also seems a bit murky is the mention that the damage type changes. Does that mean that it's no longer 'sneak attack' damage and instead something else, thus bypassing immunity to sneak attack? I know this isn't nearly as powerful as it used to be given that so many creatures that used to have immunity don't anymore, but it's still something interesting to see.

A friend and I were chatting about the Arcane Trickster and he commented on something that seemed a bit unclear to him and I have to agree that it does seem like it could be unclear. For ease of reference, the text of the ability from the PRD:

Surprise Spells: At 10th level, an arcane trickster can add her sneak attack damage to any spell that deals damage, if the targets are flat-footed. This additional damage only applies to spells that deal hit point damage, and the additional damage is of the same type as the spell. If the spell allows a saving throw to negate or halve the damage, it also negates or halves the sneak attack damage.

Now, the question we both had is whether this is intended to work entirely like the Sneak Attack ability (with the range limitation being the primary factor that we were wondering on) or if it actually allows for the possibility of sniping with Fireballs bolstered by Sneak Attack damage outside of the 30' normal limit for sneak attack?

Just as an fyi, keep in mind that Paizo does apparently have a system in place that let's them send you updates to your legally purchased PDFs. So most of those issues should be resolved once they get back from the Con.

Awesome playtest Wraith. I'm glad to see at least some of the stuff put into action to see what things look like at the higher levels.

Regarding the regeneration of Demons and Devils, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any of them with horrendously high regeneration rates to create such a situation where it'd prevent the party from being able to knock them out at least and then finish them off through either a silver dagger or something or utilize some silversheen to deal with the beast for good. I think the highest regeneration rate I found was on the Pit Fiend at Regen 5 (which by level 15 or higher, any class should be able to deal out more than 5 points of damage in a single round). I dunno, I guess I just don't see it as being such a bad thing that there's some semblance of the 'golf bag syndrome' since it's not something that I've ever seen in an actual game. Typically what I've seen is a player has a particular weapon that's their favored weapon and then they have some potions or spells or whatever to cover their bases otherwise.

Given the fact that I've never been a tremendous fan of skill consolidation (due primarily to the fact that I'm much more a fan of having the options for diversification available even if they're not always taken, I'd like to make a suggestion for changing skills in Pathfinder to utilize the Skill Groups method from the Iron Heroes sourcebook by Fiery Dragon Productions. As far as I can tell, the information is Open Content due to the Open Content statement at the beginning of the book.

Effectively what would happen is that instead of consolidating skills to try to deal with the issues that are currently in place of having enough skill points to go to the 'necessary' skills for a particular class, they keep all the skills separate and just group the skills in something they call skill groups. They are as follows:

Academia: Appraise, Concentration, Decipher Script, Heal, Knowledge, and Speak Language
Agility: Balance, Escape Artist, and Tumble
Athletics: Climb, Jump, and Swim
Mysticism: Concentration, Decipher Script, Spellcraft, and Use Magic Device
Perception: Listen, Search, Sense Motive, and Spot
Robbery: Disable Device, Forgery, Open Lock, and Sleight of Hand
Social: Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, and Intimidate
Stealth: Hide and Move Silently
Theatrics: Bluff, Disguise, Perform, and Sleight of Hand
Wilderness Lore: Handle Animal, Ride, Survival, and Use Rope

There are a few skills that don't get lumped into any skill group and remain as individual skills (Craft being the notable one). Anyway, the way these work is that each character class gets a few skill groups as being allowed for their class. When spending skill points, if the character wants, they can choose to put a single point into one of their skill groups, raising the skill rank of all of the skills that are part of that skill group at the same time.

The primary benefit to this sort of system in my opinion is that it allows for a good middle ground between 3.5's problem of having too many skills that you might have a hard time getting all the 'necessary' skills for your class and Pathfinder's problem (imo) of having many skills combined and the potential confusion this can create for conversions (related to PrCs, NPCs, etc).

I'm sure I forgot to clarify some point or another so if you are confused about something let me know and I'll try to answer it as best as I can.

As a suggestion for the OP about making the distinction more apparent in his games, I offer him this idea from the Iron Heroes system. Convert all HD to instead be a d4+x value (this value based on what the original HD was in the first place) So as a result, the different HD would translate as follows:

D6 = 1D4+2
D8 = 1D4+4
D10 = 1D4+6
D12 = 1D4+8

I've used this system in my 3.5 D&D games in the past to provide more distinction between the classes in terms of HP (and to prevent a Wizard or Sorc with lucky rolls to actually manage to have more HP total than a Barbarian with VERY unlucky rolls.

I don't actually think that this should necessarily become part of the PFRPG, mostly because of the fact that it could create some additional confusion when it comes to creature types and monstrous PCs, but I think it works fairly well if you're just trying to illustrate the gap between the types of PCs.

Hmm... I actually liked the feat. The first thing that I thought when I saw it was that it makes the duelist character have something nifty that they can do. And I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think of The Princess Bride and the whole situation of, "Why are you smiling?" "Because I know something you don't!" "What's that?" "I am not left-handed!" *swap blade mid-attack*

However, I can understand the problem that's being expressed with being able to do it all the time. I'd honestly be kinda sad to see this feat go, but perhaps making it work separately of TWF would bring it more in balance? This way it doesn't become a feat choice for Rangers trying to minimize their costs, but instead becomes another fighting style type feat?

Here's a thought that would help regarding iterative attacks. What if we were to introduce high level combat feats that instead of requiring that you meet conditions such as using a full-round action or something, you introduced feats that 'spent' iterative attacks. This would allow for a fix to martial classes that would help to address the uselessness of the lower range iterative attacks without completely removing the flexibility of having the second attack.