Blue_Drake's page

That table does help, but a lot of the entries are cited from other sources, not the ToB. It was a bit confusing at first because I was expecting it to just be creatures out of the Tome.

It's all good, I ended up buying Midgard Heroes for 5E which had plenty of player options.

Hey Marc, I posted the review on Paizo's site:

http://paizo.com/products/btpy9jba?Tome-of-Beasts-Hardcover

I tried to copy my review over to the Kobold Press store, but when I go to reviews it just says, "Only logged in customers who have purchased this product may leave a review."

I am logged in, and I redeemed the code for the pdf through the Kobold Store (actual purchase was through backerit), but it won't let me post a review.

Review posted. Great job guys! 5E really needed another monster book and this one is freakin' sweet.

Now if the post office would just hurry up with my physical copy...

Also, are you planning on DMing both/all three games?

I would probably end up DMing all the games, not by choice, but neither of my players is interested. It would honestly work out better for me if I could just DM one game and play in a second.

Thank you all for the advice. It sounds like multiple games are working out for most of you. I'll talk to my players and see if they want to try a second game. Trying 3 is probably a really bad idea since I don't even know if two will work.

I appreciate all of you taking the time to share your experiences/suggestions!

Thank you all for the advice.

Time is a bit of an issue, my group is all 40+ in age and we only meet once a week, and I consider us very lucky to be able to do so! I know many groups struggle to get regular sessions going.

I think for me as GM the different systems would keep it fresh, but I'm not sure my players would enjoy it. I'll talk to them about it and see how they feel. Hearing your opinions has helped.

I feel like my GM skills have gotten better over the years, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. I think trying a few different systems would be a nice way to stretch my skills a bit and grow.

Hello forum peoples,

I have a generic question not system specific. I GM a 5E DnD game for a couple friends and have recently gained an interest in two other RPG systems (The One Ring and Ryuutama for the curious).

Previously I've only ever played a single RPG at a time and I'm concerned about splitting time between two systems. I don't want my players (or myself) to get confused with rules and such.

I'm sure plenty of you play several different RPGs, and I was wondering if anyone had any advice or experiences to share. Did it ruin one of the games for you? Did it generate greater interest because of the variety?

Good, bad or indifferent I'd love to hear your opinion/suggestions.

Thanks in advance!

My group loved the two official 5e adventures Kobold Press created, so yeah, I'd definitely be interested in seeing them do more 5e stuff.

I know that Hoard of the Dragon Queen & Rise of Tiamat both got mixed reviews, but I really enjoyed running them, especially Hoard.

Ryuutama has manga style art and a very upbeat feel. The English translation was successfully kickstarted and the book will be ready to ship in early Oct. You get a free pdf of the rules now if you buy it.

I ordered my copy last week. The rules are on the lite side. I don't have any kids, but if I did and they liked anime, I would definitely play this RPG with them.

Not sure I'll be able to sell my DnD5E group on it, but I'm interested to read the rules anyway. It's core concepts were enough to intrigue me.

You don't need to cast identify according to the rules. If you examine the magic item during a short rest it reveals all its properties to you.

Jiggy is correct about the pearl. It's not consumed so you only ever need one pearl.

He wasn't talking about WotC finances, he was talking about the game.

This interview rubbed me the wrong way. It had a very 'corporate America' feel to it, and left me a bit discouraged for the future of 5e.

In contrast when I've read/heard interview from Mike Mearls or Jeremy Crawford I've liked what I heard. They at least sound like gamers.

Our group just finished Tyranny of Dragons. It did have a lot of errors, but nothing that was difficult to figure out. There's also a ton of errata and suggestions online if you do get stuck.

I agree with your comment that it is a bit inconsistent, but despite that it was a really fun adventure and I do recommend giving it a try if you haven't already.

I just finished reading Princes of the Apocalypse, which I'm running next and it looks more polished, but in some ways I find it lacking.

While it should come in very handy for people running a 5E game in FG, it is neither a stand-alone character generator nor an e-book "solution" (sadly).

I absolutely 100% agree. I happen to be lucky because I use Fantasy Grounds already so this worked out very well for me, but I wouldn't be surprised if other VTTs and E-solutions are made available by WotC.

As far as the price point, yes it does seem expensive, but for the amount of time it will save you in prep and play it's well worth it.

Have patience, I wouldn't be surprised if Roll20 or Hero labs ends up with a license sooner or later. The deal with Fantasy Grounds says nothing about exclusivity.

PDFs I wouldn't hold my breath for. They may come some day but I wouldn't bet on soon.

I've actually found the barbarian to be a very solid class and don't agree with it being underpowered at all. I don't think any of the combats in the Tyranny of Dragons game I'm in has gone over 10 rounds. The fights always end before rage expires.

IMO, the greatest benefit of the rage is the resistance to physical damage it gives. There have already been 2 fights where the barbarian was the only PC left standing at the end with the others knocked out. Coupled with the classes high health it easily makes it one of the most durable classes in the game.

I'm not sure what the original poster means by penalty to use it. Unless you Frenzy and end the rage with 1 level of exhaustion there really isn't any penalty for raging.

Reckless attack is an option to gain advantage in melee combat, but in turn gives attackers advantage against you for one turn. Using it is optional; it's not something you have to do just because you rage.

I haven't found the unarmored defense to be a hindrance. Remember you can still use a shield with it. The barbarian's AC is comparable to the other front-line fighters.

I also really like the 5E monsters. I did not enjoy stating up 3/3.5E monsters. I felt like I was making a character which can be fun once in a while for the BBEG, but it ends up being a giant time sink when you have to do it all the time.

If you play it as written the minions are supposed to save the half-dragon before you can finish him off.

I imagine the directions to reuse his stats if he is defeated were included just to keep it simple for the DM. It's easy enough to swap him out for the 2nd encounter with a minimum amount of effort. Just use 3 berserkers, or change his race to something other than half-dragon if you don't want to reuse him.

Here here! I second that. Running Hoard of the Dragon Queen now, and I just got Rise of Tiamat last week.

It'd be shame if Wizards didn't ask Kobold Press to write another adventure because my group is having a blast with it.

As a side note; I hope they stick with the same format for their adventures in the future regardless of writers. I really like the hardcover books with the heavystock pages.

I'll be waiting with you. I have all the Pathfinder Bestiaries and will jump on the official 3.5 conversion guide when it comes out.

I never played 4th, but what I saw of it led me to believe it would have made an awesome rules set for a turn-based tactical RPG on the PC.

I'm surprised they never did anything with it digitally.

I think it's main strength was tactical combat with minis, but again I never played so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Padded is bulkier, whereas leather and studded leather can be crafted to a tight fit that won't get in the wearer's way. It's not so much that the padded armor makes noise itself, but picture yourself trying to sneak around in a heavy winter coat and you'll start to understand the issue with it. Basically the bulk of the material plus padding is going to make the wearer clumsier.

I'd avoid making a Cleric of Tiamat...

Other than that I think any race and class combination from the PHB would be fine.

I think it works best if your character is of good or neutral alignment and has a vested interest in the world. It's more of an epic story as opposed to a dungeon crawl so having some epic heroes to go with it would be a good fit.

Thanks for the heads up!

My group loves to charge in head first and start swinging so I'll definitely need to find a way to impress upon them that caution is needed.

The simpler more streamlined rules clinched it for me. One read through of the PHB and I'm confident that I could run a game without a copy of the rules in front of me.

I just got my copy last night and it looks great. I look forward to running the adventure for my group and picking up part II when it releases.

I sincerely hope that Kobold Press gets the opportunity to create more adventures for 5th edition.

Great job guys!

I'm glad that WotC made 5th edition. I admit that I am not a fan of them as a company; they have made some questionable marketing decision in the past, IMO. However, that doesn't impact the current product.

I paid $30 on Amazon for my 5E PHB and am very happy with what I received. The book is good quality and the the rules are a good fit for my group. No matter what they did in the past that does not change that I feel the current product is a good value.

I don't know what WotC will do with the line in the future, maybe they will screw it up with more questionable marketing. If that happens I won't buy any more 5E, but I still won't regret buying the core rule books.

I just got my copy of Hoard of the Dragon Queen yesterday and that book also looks fantastic. My group has many sessions of exciting times ahead with 5E.

Just ordered a copy online. I'm really excited about playing 5E D&D and running the Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure from Kobold Press! I feel like a kid at Christmas time :)

I'm chomping at the bit to get my hands on the PHB. From what I've seen in the basic rules it isn't too powerful at all, with the exception of the spells hitting a little harder. 3d10 from inflict wounds at 1st level seems high since I'm used to Pathfinder, but I'll wait until I see it in actual play before worrying that it may be OP.

There are the traditional 3 volumes planned as with all previous editions of D&D.

Player's Handbook, Dungeonmaster's Guide and Monster Manual.

I doubt you'll see any more races and classes in the DMG or MM. For now they will all be in the PHB, although they may expand the options later with additional content.

I didn't play 4th Edition, but I understand that had 3 "Player's Handbooks", but books 2 & 3 would be the equivalent of your Advanced Race Guide or Advanced Player's Guide for Pathfinder. They were expansions rather than a necessary part of the core rules.

In other words you only need the PHB, DMG and MM to play. If you have those 3 books you don't need to purchase anything else, and if you're a player you only need the PHB.

Is it particularly important that you start with the racial hit dice? If not why not just offer to drop them? At that point the mongrelman (IMO) is in line with the core races. I'm not seeing any crazy abilities or stats that set off my GM warning bells.

Stand you ground DM Cal. it's your game and you have your reasons for the amount of treasure you give. As long as the encounters are fair for the resources you've provided then I wouldn't change it. If it's becoming too big an issue to ignore then take a few minutes before your next session to briefly explain why you choose to do this. Hopefully once your players understand where you're coming from they will accept it and just play.

I'm currently running a low magic game where magical items are relatively rare and it hasn't been an issue. I was very upfront about what I intended before we started the game. So far it's been going smoothly.

I've had the pre-adventure shopping trip in town take close to 2 hours before because my players just love to shop and sometimes they just get chatty with an NPC. As long as the group is being entertained I just roll with it.

As Tony says above, you don't need to finish in one session unless it's a one-shot. Just keep an eye on your players for signs of boredom or apathy. If someone is getting restless it may be time to move onto the next scene.

I also try and think one step ahead of my players when we're getting close to the end of a session. If I know someone has to leave in 30 minutes and the next encounter is a long one that will take longer than that to finish then I'll call a night before we reach that encounter.

If you're GMing one-shots you may want to check the PFS forums for advice. From what I understand these are games that are set to finish in a set time frame and you may find advice there about how to stay on track.

Another tip is if the first half of the session went slower than expected look for an encounter you can cut from the second half without hurting your story too much. You can always recycle that encounter for a future play session.

I wouldn't say it's great anime, but Orphen had a decent RPG feel to it and deserves to be mentioned. It had a very distinctive tabletop RPG feel to it IMO.

The first series was better than the second.

I would happily play a rogue or monk, but I play with a casual group and nobody is interested in power-gaming.

If I was in a group of min/maxers I may avoid playing a monk or rogue just to not have to hear the complaints about the classes.

Truthfully most RPG games I've played (tabletop or electronic) always seem to have an 'underwhelming' option. Perhaps they are there for people who want a challenge or are intended for non-traditional play styles.

Kobolds
Lizardfolk
Dwarves
Gnolls
Wyvarans

I've liked Kobolds since way back in 1st edit. D&D. I wish they had a less evil outlook in Pathfinder.

Every group is different. I was running RotRL for 2 friends (1 new to RPGs and 1 new to Pathfinder) and I felt that the levels came too quick. We stopped in the middle of the third adventure because it was getting too complicated. I think spending some more time at lower levels would have helped. There wasn't time to get accustomed to new abilities and spells before more got dumped on.

I wish we had started with a few low-level modules first instead of an adventure path.

I suppose it could have been worse...

"What do you do with Four Arms and a Tentacle, a grease spell and the Rod of Lordly Might?"

Sorry... I couldn't help myself.

Thank you!

Snapdragon Fireworks

The duration is 1 round/level and I can direct one firework as a move action each round. As I'm reading this I could still cast another spell as a standard action each round and still continue to direct a firework as a move action each turn correct?

The spell doesn't mention concentration so I'm assuming (hopefully correctly) that once cast no concentration is needed to maintain it.

Is this correct? Thank you for any assistance.

If you died 6 times before level 6 in one campaign you either need new dice or more likely a new GM. I'd gently remind the GM that you're not competing with him and express concerns about the frequency of your PC deaths. Maybe he/she needs to tone down the encounters a bit.

Also at least one of your deaths sound a bit suspicious. When you disappeared what was the explanation? Where there dice rolls involved or were you just told this happened?

My only complaint with Paizo is the quality. I love the content, I love the Pathfinder system and I really love the friendly nature of the company. However, I think the quality of the books is not up to par with other RPG books I've bought in the past.

I don't feel that, as the consumer, I should be responsible for re-gluing or rebinding the books. I own a copy of all the hard covers up to the present, but I have stayed away from the soft covers because of quality concerns.

It is nice that you can buy the pdfs online, but I really like a hard copy I can thumb through, and printing it myself is not a cost-effective option by the time you figure in the cost of printing supplies as well as the time and effort to print and bind it, it simply isn't worth it, in my opinion.

Please raise the quality of the binding materials/adhesive being used. I would love to spend more money on Paizo goodies, but for now I am reluctant to do so. Making it right with a replacement after the fact is decent, but it would be far better to get it right the first time.

If the 5 missiles hit the same target they would hit at the same time. I would treat it as a single source of damage for purposes of a concentration check.

As far as this post: there's a reason MM is a classic spell. The guaranteed hit w/no save by itself makes it worthwhile, add to that the ability to hit incorporeal creatures and decent range and there's nothing not to like.

Try SumatraPDF; it's free, opensource and has a much lighter footprint than Adobe Reader.

I also allowed my players to use 4d6 drop lowest. We started in a home-brew game and switched to Runelords at lvl 2. I didn't have the heart to make them start over so I let them keep their characters.

The high stats have made some of the fights a bit on the easy side, but not to the extent that they're trivialized. I maxed the enemy hit points starting in part 3 to make the fights last a little longer, but otherwise haven't touched the difficulty of the AP.

Mind you my group does not contain any power gamers. My players are new to Pathfinder, and in one case new to role-playing entirely. If I was GMing for players that enjoy the min/max type of gameplay then I would make some necessary adjustments to keep it interesting for them.

Advice to the OP: Every group is different. If the high stats are ruining the game for you or some players than you may have to make some changes. Otherwise just run with it and let them have fun feeling a bit 'overpowered'.

Personally I like the kobolds better, but I also will give the nod that Pathfinder goblins are much more interesting than the standard D&D goblin from yesteryear.

I wouldn't mind playing either race as a PC, but if I had to pick just one then the kobolds win.

My group usually meets 3 times a month and our sessions vary in length quite a bit with 3 to 6 hours being average. If we play for longer than 4 hours we usually take an hour break for food.

We're playing over Skype using Fantasy Grounds II. I find my attention span for GMing is shorter online than it would be in person. When I met with friends at one location to play we would easily play for 6 to 8 hours, but there was also more cancelled sessions because of people missing. The convenience of online play has cut-back on the missed sessions considerably.

RAW only allow a single spell per wand, but I don't think having a wand that can cast multiple spells would alter the game balance much.

If one of my players asked I would probably tack on some kind of cost increase for the convenience of having multiple spells in the same wand.

(Cost of Wand with Spell A + Cost of Wand with Spell B) * 1.1 = Final Cost

I'd probably tack on another 10% per spell so a wand that could hold 4 spells would be the total of the individual wands * 1.4. That way it would be progressively more expensive the more spells you shove in a single wand. Of course you could adjust the additional cost to your liking for your game until you felt it was balanced.

This also assumes that each spell has its own separate charges, if they are going to share the same 50 charges then I would price it out as the most expensive individual wand * the multiplier.

Staves and scrolls are still significantly different enough for me that I wouldn't have an issue with this.

Another option is the X out of Y people found this review helpful option that some sites have. To me seeing that 90 out of 100 people agree with a particular review means I will take the time to really read that review and consider what it says when I make my buying decision. If I see 1 out of 10 people found a review helpful I will usually just skip it.

IMO that system works really well for the Good Old Games site. I find that the more helpful reviews are usually at the top of the list as they sort it based on the # of most helpful votes.

Reviews of a questionable nature are usually buried in the pile and I never even get to them before I make a decision.

This system requires some work on Paizo's part to setup, but after that it allows us, as the consumers, to moderate the reviews. It's also a great way for someone who's not very articulate to still have a say as they can just pick a well-written review that expresses how they feel and mark it as helpful.

There's a certain appeal to wanting to pretend to be an iconic figure. I don't think there's anything wrong with given the nature of the game.

I like DeathQuaker's post and agree with it. A character can start off based on a favorite character from a novel, movie or comic book and then come to develop its own uniqueness based on the setting and storyline its been interjected into.

I also would suggest patience and acceptance. Not everybody has the creative spark or urge to create a character's background from scratch. See where it goes in game; you may be pleasantly surprised. If you have concerns about the direction it takes or it starts to detrimentally impact other people's experience discuss it with your GM or the player in question.

What you're describing is extremely unlikely.

If you genuinely believe there is no cheating taking place and still wish to play with this person have someone else roll his dice, or use a PC program or tablet app for his dice rolls where he isn't physically interacting with the dice.

@Riggler
It depends on your table. I'm fortunate (or unlucky enough depending on your point of view) to GM for a table that focuses on role-playing more than stat min-maxing.

I understand where you're coming from though, and I agree and share your feelings that many players don't pick a race based on flavor. To some extent that's unavoidable though, and it makes sense that the Kitsune, or any other race, would on the whole favor professions they excel at.

I don't agree that a +2 ability modifier of your choice to all races would decrease the expanded races though. In fact, I think if all the races were equal I think you'd see even more diversity. While the min-maxing does drive some players to seek out a race that matches their class choice well, at the same time it limits them to races with the right bonuses. With the current setup you probably don't see many kobold martials, a -4 hit to Str is strong deterrent.