BobROE's page

This continues Paizo's recent history of poor map editing.

The real question. How long did they work on the name/acronym for?

Exactly. Again, I talk about this organization and thematic style IN Iron Gods... in the forewords. Those sections at the start of each volume were a great place for the developer to pull aside the curtain and speak directy to the reader, to reveal some behind the scenes content, additional game content that we didn't have room for in the adventure, or talk about the practice of adventure creation. I miss them, but the perception was that no one read them, and the other adventure developers at the time hated writing them, so they went away.

I always found the forwards a fascinating read, but I am a game designer, so that may play into that.

It would be nice if that sort of info showed up on the website, but the time gap between when the product left development's hands and the release date would probably make those insights harder to remember.

It's something that has cropped up in other adventures as well. There often seems to be an assumption about slowed that it decreases over time.

keftiu wrote:

It’s easier to write an AP and say “if you wanna be lore-compliant, use the rules in this upcoming lore book” than it is to say that over half the classes in the game are barred from three months worth of releases.

It’s not how I would’ve done it, but I see how they got there.

Thankfully, nobody has proposed banning certain classes from being played in Outlaws of Alkenstar. But if I bought the Archery Contest adventure for Pathfinder, one would at least think whoever wrote it might spare a thought for what to do with all the characters that don't have martial proficiency.

As for the "Pay us 55/75$ now, and we'll give you the rules on how to run this AP properly nine months later" approach -- I'm not a fan of that either.

The problem with including Magic is Screwy in Alkenstar Rules in an AP somewhat multifaceted.

You're not being treated like a second class customer just because you're not being given a new version of a product for free just because you bought the previous version. Did you also expect the Curse of the Crimson Throne collection for free when it came out?

No, but the difference between (both in content and time) was a lot greater with CotCT than AV, which made it a more attractive purchase to subscribers.

Since I own the original 3 PDFs the value of the compiled PDF is pretty low, since they (at least from my understanding) have made minimal changes to the contents of the adventures. So the foundry implementation is costing $60 (which it may be worth) plus comes with something I don't need/want.

All this means that I'm far less likely to buy the foundry version at all, so they're not getting anything from me.

That said, what's MOST helpful to me and the rest of the Adventure Path developers in gauging what upcoming stories to focus on is to hear what people WANT, rather than what they don't want. It's not only more positive (and thus more pleasant and thus more inspiring to read—hope no one is surprised that if a developer reads too much complaints, chances are good they'll stop reading and just abandon the feedback process), but knowing what worked well is more important than what didn't. Especially since the internet is never short to let us know about the latter when it comes to product feedback!

I'm never really sure what I want, which is a useless answer I know.

So I guess my response is... surprise me?

That other 10% is skill and social interactions.

Ok.

Then what's wrong with just give the summoner 'evolution' feats that they can select as class feats that give the eidolon stuff? They don't need to be a special pool of feats that only the eidolon can select just ones with the right traits.

Cause not all players are going to want to focus on their eidolon the same way you do.

An Eidolon can, at level 1,

---Select 1 Ancestry feat, can select 1 class feat, they get a skill feat (from their background)---(I'm not sure how to cross it out) Select 3 evolution feats instead.

So would the summoner player get 6 feats at first level? Or am I misunderstanding here?

Or are you proposing just dumping the summoner as part of the equation? So the player would just be the eidolon.

Past years they show up for sale on the Paizo site a month after the Free RPG day, so I suspect that will be true again.

It's not mentioned in the product description, but PaizoCon Online spoilers said troops will be in this.

Even without knowing that, the skeleton group on the front sort of suggested it.

The idea that Good PCs ending up killing the petty cutpurse is the likely result has zero basis.

All tavern brawls I experienced in PF2 did not end up in bloodbaths.

So resorting to lethal force when the GM makes it clear that other options are available is a player's choice and usually a jerk move that puts the whole party in hot waters with the local law.

Truth be told, I have the nagging feeling that AoE will go out of its way to make most non-Evil encounters possible to deal with through non-lethal means.

I guess that raises the question of what happens to the campaign if the player do use lethal force when they shouldn't have.

If they're kicked off the force or arrested does that mean the GMs out the cost of all of these books?

Is that going to incline people to let stuff slide (so to speak)?

I guess if we're going to do this, what is the point of event starting the PCs off as officers of the law? They can just be independent contractors, or their could resign their commission immediately and still fight injustice.

I suspect the goal was to make this campaign be 'different'. Being independent contractors being hired/employed by a nebulous government is the default assumption in a lot of campaigns.

Are you just supposed to make something up? If so, what is the point of the book in the first place? Why not just bullsh!t everything about a creature and save yourself the money?

If you're not making things up when you make a new monster, what would you be doing?

I'm somewhat confused by the geometry of the Temple of All Gods.

The text seems to indicate that both H12 and H7-11 are above the main floor of the temple. But I feel like that would have the ramp to H12 passing straight through H11.

It seems like it would make more sense for H7-11 to below the main floor (as there in some mention of the prison being below).

Thoughts?

That all said, I've certainly heard the feedback, and we won't be doing a "replace them with their twin" stunt again. It's obviously not satisfying. Fortunately, you can adjust as needed for your game so that your players will never know.

For what it's worth I'll say I think it was great, and was highly entertained by it.

This is only going to be something players are going to know if they read the book.

If in area A they encounter twin A and kill him, then go to area B and encounter twin B, players are going to think that's how the adventure is supposed to play out.

I haven't read the adventure yet, but skimming through it the maps do not live up to the artistic quality that I expect from paizo.

Magnuskn provides a great example, because we don't know the reason the power floor of pure casters was dropped its hard for us to brainstorm viable alternatives, we don't know more than a general mission statement.

But the goal of a playtest is not to get the fanbase to brainstorm alternatives.

Its to provide data and feedback on the systems that have been designed.

The design team then uses that data to make decisions/changes.

As well as tracking the number of times someone ran out of resonance (and critically ran out of resonance) they should probably also track times where fear of running out of resonance altered a characters action choices.

I want alchemical bombs to be useful to a fighter even at level 15-20.

But why?

If the (one of) the roles that the Alchemist is supposed fill is "be good with alchemical stuff at all levels", why does a Fighter need to be as well?

Ideally the Fighter is good at 'other stuff' (tm) that the Alchemist isn't good at.

If a player wants to be really good with bombs all the time they should play an alchemist, not a fighter.

(clearly archtypes can change all this)

In the one file per chapter version of the PDF, do the page numbers of the adventure section just cut out on page 26 for anyone else?

Win 10 with Acrobat reader if that matters.

Can you make the Canadian dollar go up before September?

I wonder if they make so much more money from subscriptions than from traditional book sales and individual purchases. Also, can't you just cancel and resubscribe at will, to miss part of a subscription you aren't interested in? Consider if the average table falls apart before getting past the 3rd book of a campaign, Paizo is losing out on selling the rest of that content. But if Paizo can sell an anniversary edition they can sell all of that content at once. In the anniversary model Paizo gets their money whether someone's table gets to that part of the books or not.

That assumes that people are running the APs as they come out, not after all 6 are available. For instance I'd never run an AP before I got all 6 books.

And if the anniversary collection costs the same as 3 issues of the AP (which is what it was for RotR) then the revenue is the same.

Grenfax, what you want is the interactive map pdf.

Which doesn't seem to be available for Giantslayer, but I'm sure will be at some point soonish (since you can get it for other previous APs).

I've run Council of Thieves so I probably wouldn't get it but a hardcover of it would help smooth out some issues towards the end, and perhaps unify the story a bit better.

I'd like to see an updated version of Serpent's Skull, it's sort of a mess in the middle so having it cleaned up would be nice.

Did anyone see my bracers of daring exploits?

As a swift action, it protected you from Attacks of Opportunity that could be provoked by a single perilous activity.

I only saw it once, and that was before the cull. :-(

I saw it after the cull, and voted for it on more than one occasion.

The first thing I consider is "Can I think of a character who would want this?". Too many times I can't come up with an answer, or I look at the price and wouldn't at the point you'd be getting the item.

Also, I've seen too many items that don't like the save DCs, which is starting to personally bug me....

Any thought to making the pdf version digitally fillable?

Also, were I making the cards I'd definitely focus on short-term buffs that come and go in a matter of rounds. Haste would definitely be in, as would Inspire Courage. Mage Armor would definitely be out.

I'd also focus on stuff that gives multiple bonuses/effects. So Haste over magic vestment. Since it's easier to remember single effects compared to multiple.

Some random +1 X bonus cards would be useful for those times you need to give out temp bonuses for stuff.