Boojumbunn's page

Ok.. in our current game, the person in charge of us says that we need supplies, and food is one of the things we need. So I look some things up.

1. You use life sciences to craft food from unspecified materials.

2. You spend full cash cost for the food you craft, but if you find food (scavenge) then the GM will let you take 10% off the cost of crafting food.

3. If your skill level exceeds the level of the food you are trying to craft by 5, then it takes half as long to craft it. If it exceeds it by 10 then it takes a quarter as long to craft it.

Ok, so those seem to be the rules.

Now the problems, as in what is left out.

1. No levels are listed for food items... so there is no way to tell what crafting levels will decrease time...

2. Let us presume that a common meal is a level 1 thing. If my skill with life sciences is 1 then I can make 1 meal in 4 hours. If it is level 6 then I can make 2 meals in 4 hours. If my level is 11 then I can make 4 meals in 4 hours and there is no improvement after that.

3. In addition to having life sciences 6 I have Profession Cook 11. As near as I can tell, having the profession cook just lets you earn money for every week you spend working based upon your level. Is that correct? It doesn't let me make edible food?

So am I missing anything? We are a ship in a star system with no stores. The ship doesn't have food, we need to get food for the ship. Finding food doesn't count as food, it just gives me 10% off the cost of making food? And Food doesn't have levels?

I have to be missing something, so could someone point out where in the rules I need to go looking? Thanks!

Boojum

Because you can pick up Boost's from a variety of sources, I would recommend adding it to the Key Terms section in addition to the Abilities section. The other solution would be to reference the abilities page for a description of how Boost works at every place it appears, and it appears a lot! I found it a BUNCH of times before I ever got to Abilities.

HI everyone, now that my rant is out of the way, I do have a question. Does anyone know of a book or tables that has stuff characters can own (from silk dresses to owning your own tavern) that works with the Pathfinder system? I'm not referring to Ultimate Campaign. I own that book and even engineers in our gaming group had trouble following those rules.

I more mean... something that includes different styles of clothing from different fabrics. Vanity magic items like "Playfull Kitten, 3xDay this stuff animal will play with you for 30 minutes." or "Rainbow Bathsalts, changes the color of bathwater randomly for 1 hour" Different types of booze with different costs based on quality.

Creating a list from scratch would take forever. Does anyone know of a book that might include this stuff? Or even a web site of stuff?

Thanks,
Boojum

Sorry, I'm and old fogey and I am having an "everything was better in the good old days" moment. Has anyone noticed that the life of adventurers seem to get grimmer and grimmer as more versions come out? As in, everything that makes life living for a person seems to be getting stripped out and actively discouraged.

When was the last time one of your characters attended a birthday party for their niece? Or their sister? Or HAD a birthday party? Do your character actually have a family written in, much less visit and say hello? Did your non-bard learn to play the guitar because it was fun? OH noo, don't play a non-optimized character or everyone will die! No family, no home, no life other than the daily grind of kill things, get healed, kill things.

Now, a new version is coming out. To prevent combat abuses, lets have resonance on magic items so you can only use/have so many. Ok.. so no magic items just for fun? The magic cat who I can play with 3 times a day now costs a resonance point each time I play with it? My character has 50,000 gold pieces, and is homeless. My character has gems and jewelry, but no wife/husband/children to support. Look, I'm rich, but I have no parents to send money to so that they do not loose the farm because they had a bad year.

"Wait!" People answer. "But that's just roleplaying! You don't need rules for that.. You can just mail off the money! You can just pretend you have a husband who needs support!"

Exactly my point. The games seem to be getting designed to discourage roleplay in favor of being, almost, a first person shooter. You will be given rules on crafting that no one can make a living at... lest some adventurer get a combat advantage from crafting. You will have a maximum cost of gear you can own... so that no one can buy their way to power... but now you can't dress in silks and satins because that all counts towards your maximum cost.. and heaven forbid if they add the cost of the home you purchased in town.

I understand the desire to power balance characters, but I am starting to feel burned out on the new gaming systems stripped down characters who all start feeling the same. Different characters come from different lives for the character. Without the roleplaying aspects every character becomes highly optimized for whatever roles they will have, and then adventures will be designed so that if you are not highly optimized, you die.

Sorry, that was my rant moment. I know not everyone agrees with my view of rpgs. I would just really like to see more R built into the new rpgs coming out, including PathFinder 2nd edition.

Boojum

I have been in the same AD&D 2nd edition campaign since it was an AD&D 1st edition game, and one of the things I have loved about it is how our characters can build homes, professions, lands, change the world, retire, have kids, etc. In the Pathfinder games, between adventure paths, someone pushes a reset button on the universe and characters can never get ahead in the world, only in the campaign as listed.

When I ran Emerald Spire, I bought the Ultimate Campaign book with the hopes that we could build a long term campaign in the region.. but the entire "Magic points, resource points, etc points, transfers, generation, etc" was so complicated that we spent more time trying to figure out how those rules were supposed to work. The rules were more about resource management points than about building a campaign life.

Does anyone know what they are planning for crafting, homes, friends, and investing in the new system? Or will GM's be completely on their own again in having to build a working economic system while all the work goes into convention style play?

Boojum

I have been unable to find a definition of "In Space" for when a Star Shamans fly in space ability manifests. For example, taken from the current game I am in, my character is in a space ship and gravity in the space ship has gone out. I am not on a planet, I am in a vehicle in space with no gravity. Would I be able to fly? Or is only when the ship is gone and I am in vaccume that I can fly?

Boojum the brown bunny

Hey guys, in multiple places of the Level 6 of Emerald Spire Superdungeon they refer to Advanced Bestiary page 169 for the monsters. I purchased Advanced Bestiary in .pdf format here at Paizo and it seems to have NO information on the monsters in question. (Brazen Minotaur is one monster)

Can anyone tell me what book this is supposed to be referencing if not the Advanced Bestiary here at Paizo? I am currently running the spire for my friends and I can not make the math work for these characters without this book.

Thanks,
Boojum the brown bunny

Well, I've been playing MMO's for a VERY long time; paper and pencil games even longer. I've discovered an interesting format to encourage me to play with others... and that is to design for weakness not for strength.

Design for weakness, you might ask? But your character will get chomped/attacked/killed/destroyed through it's weakness! Well, not if you're with other people.

Sure, I have the occasional character for solo play who I attempt to make as well balanced as possible.. but they only occasionally get played because my fun comes from playing with others!

So an important point in an MMO that is skill/training based rather than class base is to design your character with a deliberate weakness that causes your character so seek out other characters with particular skills to play with.

Why do I mention this? Because oft times people design a character to have as little weakness as possible, spreading out their lower trained skills to keep them all on a par with each other. If your character is going to travel with others... say a group of like minded people who like to go on adventures together (to be called an adventuring party) then design your character to need to travel with others and you will seek out others to travel with whenever you are logged in as that character!

The side benefit is that you will find yourself spending more time on your characters personality and roleplaying with others.. at least that is the way it works for me. So my suggestion for group play is don't design for ballanced strength with little weakness. Embrace your weaknesses, design them for your character, be aware of them and use them to promote social gaming!

Boojum the brown bunny

Oh gosh, the elves in Pathfinder Online are really not very good looking. They have tiny little eyes, chubby cheeks, and no chin... and they stand with their chest way out and their shoulders way back. They just look very wrong. I hope they improve them before the game comes out. I'm not sure if I can play an ugly elf... I'm afraid I like pretty elves. I might have to switch my character concept to a gnome instead.

Boojum the brown bunny

Is there any word on the possability of a paper mini pack for the Emerald Spire super dungeon? Or some plastic mini's? I'm going to be running it in a couple months.

Boojum

I was thinking recently of the social aspects of the sandbox MMO. Of how it might work. This the non-combat hey lets hang out together part of the game, though part of it may involve finding people to go adventuring with.

It involves things that turn a town into a community and give people both an easy way to interact with onown friends and an easy way to find friends.

1. The local tavern and gossip. I think there needs to be small to large gathering spots where people can sit and hangout and chat.

2. Teleport. There needs to be a way to get all your friends together in a reasonable amount of time even if John ran halfway acrossed the world and logged out yesterday.

3. Multiple chat channels, some with voice. I want my organization chat channel, my town chat channel, my epic quest chat channel where I find out a major fight is going down. I want to choose if a channel includes voice or not.

4. I want to be able to global mute people I don't like and global friend people I do like.

5. I want undockable chat panels so I can keep several conversations going and easily see when someone responds.

6. I want a town bulletin board where people in my town can leave messages to each other.

7. I want an unknown age flag so I can keep my roleplaying clean when people we don't know are adult are about (or a confirmed adult flag)

8. I want character poses that let me take advantage os the worlds beauty spots. (I.e. stand cool, sit on ground, dance, etc..)

9. I want in game mail to be filterable, searchable, and well organized.

Boojum

I happen to love crafting.. finding recipe's and building items. How cool would it be if when you examined a crafted item it included a "Crafted By: Character Name" in it's description?

Also, what would people think of being able to name crafted items of above a certain quality? If the name is blank just call it by it's device name. Also, allow an owner to select weather to use it's crafted name or the or the device name so that the owner can choose what name appears in his inventory mouseover?

I think that taking pride in the things you can create is one of the things that drives the crafting communities and think these additions would be totally cool!

Boojum the brown bunny

One of the staples of the fantasy world is that the gear you own should change how your character looks. The person in robes and a pointy hat is probably a wizard. The person in full plate armor with a shield and a big sword is probably a fighter. So there is a basic expectation that what you equip on your character affects your appearance.

Just as each character is unique in their players mind, their wardrobe choices can also be unique. A rogue might want to dress all in black leather. A Bard in crimson and gold. An evil wizard in paisley (because paisley is evil.) Also... a well off wizard might dress in silks and satins while a poor wizard might dress in a robe made of burlap. All these are a combination of character personality and in game wealth.

How cool would it be if, when you went into a shop to buy something you wear, you could pay extra at the time of purchase to get it in a particular color or material? "Here sir, you can have this rather bland brown cloak for 10gp, or for a mere 1000gp you could own this fine blue waterproof leather cloak with a wolverine ruff to keep the ice from forming near your face.."

And before anyone says it, yes.. I want to play dress up dolls with my characters. It's really not that unusual in RPG games for people to have a custom portrait drawn of their character, or to paint a custom mini (which reminds me that I was part of the Reaper Mini kickstarter and have a ton of minies I really should be painting in my spare time.)

So it would be nice if we could purchase or craft clothes of particular colors or materials so that our characters can express their own, unique fashion.

Boojum the brown bunny

Ok, I have to admit that when I'm excited about something I tend to create characters. By that I don't mean choose what weapons they can use and what feats they have, I mean who their parents were, why they are traveling, what is their personality like?

So now I'm starting in on this for my Pathfinder Online character, so that when the time comes to reserve my characters name I have a name (or three names) to enter in. Since I'm a Tabletop Pathfinder RPG player I figure I can use a lot of the source books and then tweak things when the Pathfinder Online Canon comes out.

How many others are doing this? Have you designed your first character for Pathfinder Online yet? What personality quirks have you chosen?

Boojum the brown bunny

Pretty much every fantasy game system has some sort of mount system, and lets face it, then NEED mounts. Otherwise travel simply becomes a doggedly boring thing to do.

On the flip side, I've walked into a shop in some games to find myself staring at 20 horse butts because people ride their mount into town, then into the shop.. never leaving it as they do their shopping.

I don't want to prevent people from riding horses in the street.. I certainly don't want to stop small folk from riding dogs in the street.

What would people think if, when you hit the door to go into a shop, if your mount was put at a hitching post until you emerged? Thus you can see how busy the shop is from the outside AND the inside of the shop won't get cluttered by extra animals? Maybe the same can be done with a necromancers undead pets?

But at very least I hope they derez pets when someone goes into a shop so they aren't riding around on a horse, banging their head against a chandelier.

Boojum the brown bunny

Ok... so from the gameplay video's there is some tactical maneuvering going on... and that made me wonder if racial speeds will be used in the game?

For example, a half-orc, a half-elf, and a halfling walk into a bar.. does the halfling walk slower? If they are running down a road, would the halfling be left behind? This is barring, of course, things like animal mounts, magic speed boosts, etc.

This also made me think of an entire party of adventurers running down the road, the poor little halflings and gnomes feet moving just as fast as they can... and getting further and further behind their taller companions.

Boojum the brown bunny