Captain Xenon's page

hm. at this point, i would love to see a PDF atlas with an option to turn the hex grid on or off.

in case of a print version, it needs to include a transparent sheet with the hex grid on it. the old 2e forgotten realms box set had two of these of different scale, it was quite useful for quickly figuring out distance traveled.

the real problem with most atlas books imho, is when they focus not on usable maps, but on following the events of a book. dragonlance did this far too much. while some maps for the more famous megadungeons would be a good thing to include, i think what we both want to see are countryside maps in various scales. sort of like the area around sandpoint from rise of the runelords.

heck, there are probably a lot of maps that would be easy to include from existing products as is, just needs a reference to source in some cases.

first of all, be an active player- pay attention, and interact when appropriate. dont be one of those guys playing fruit ninja until asked to roll dice.

know your character- have opinions and motivations. if nothing else is going on and your in town, what do you want to do for fun? in the dungeon, how do you respond to different types of threats? it can sometimes help to write a bit of background to help you think through the characters views.

know your abilities- you should understand the rules enough to quickly roll and find the result for your to-hit, saves, and so on. dont break immersion and slow everything down asking what you need to roll, or what to add.

in you know who your character is, and what he can do, and whats happening in the game, then its easy to figure out what he should do.

the best way to define a character is not how he fights, but how he reacts to everyday stuff in town. most fights have a specific best answer for a characters build, but trying to find lunch in a busy town is a question of personality.

the easiest way to move a lot of goods from location A to location B is to use create demiplane, greater. just use 3 castings of the spell- one to create it, and two more to add portals to the locations you need. then have unskilled laborers haul things down a hallway to your other warehouse, regardless of what plane its on. cost only really goes up if you want to make the demiplane permanent. you just need a wizard willing to spend 8 hours casting a 9th level spell for you, repeatedly.

now, for a proper 'cargo plane', i would suggest designing a new animal from the ground up. perhaps some kind of flying whale? pick the final stats you want, and then describe how it gets there. easy for a GM to do. for a player, talk to your GM- either they will help you build it, or they save you time by simply telling you no.

cliff racers are basically small versions of the pterodactyl. and they are everywhere.

are you using soul gems? keep in mind that black soul gems are possible, despite the mage's guild outlawing them. you will need to figure out some kind of HD to soul conversion, or perhaps base it on CR.

the issue will be weight, rather than volume. i know from experience that a too-heavy backpack can hurt- i once got bruises on both shoulders after carrying an overloaded backpack full of books back to my car from a library book sale.

the rules only say 2 cubic feet. this is 2409 pounds. you can get fewer coins per cubic foot due to shape however. there is no mention of a weight limit, but this may depend on material used.

so lets just round down to a ton of gold, 2000 pounds. at 50 coins per pound, that 100,000 gold coins. you need a strength of 20 just to drag that much weight.

so the practical answer- the backpack holds as much as you can try to carry.

there do not appear to be any stats for water fowl, you may want to just use the raven familiar stats but remove the ability to talk. have it give a +3 swim bonus maybe, and use a swim speed(10') when on the water surface.

bonus points if it sits on his head, and he responds 'what duck?'

the wandering monster chart lists 1d6 boars, with a base 6% chance of encountering those specifically. six cr2 boars would be a bit much for one lv5 wizard, especially if they get surprise. plus they dont drop at 0hp, and keep attacking until -con. thats 35 damage to one-shot a boar, which is more than a fireball can dish out at 5d6.

so, if everything goes right? wizard gets initiative, drops a 5d6 AOE on the boars for an average of 17 damage(save for half). then the six boars rip him apart.

if your a caster, then caster level is most important. it adds to your concentration check, your save DC, your spell penetration, and you available number of spells.

the only time you dont worry about caster level, is when you dip caster for a reason other than spells- such as qualifying for arcane archer.

in most cases, multiclass is weak in pathfinder because class abilities are very good. multiclass is terrible for Magus, because of the specific way that class abilities work for that class. if you delay when you get those abilities, then you will be less able to survive higher CR fights.

part of the issue of this specific game, is that the system includes 'traps', which take up limited character resources yet provide below-average returns. and at the same time there are selections which provide superior returns either some or all of the time.

so people post a lot about game balance issues, many of which vary a lot from table to table. some people think that a player who actually understands the rules is a power-gamer, because he can then build a better character with his rules knowledge. power-gamer is a negative term used simply to describe a style of play that we do not like, and everyone has a different definition of it.

the real trick, is that a small imbalance at level 1 can become a huge imbalance later in the game, especially if you compare a well-planned full caster to a cluttered mess of multi-class dipping that may have looked like a good idea at the time.

most times when someone is called a power-gamer, that means the one calling them that has less system mastery and is bothered by that fact. occasionally its an actual problem player. its very easy to get two fighters and have one be a good deal better than the other. same goes for sorcerers, rogues, and bards. the more finite choices you have to make, the easier it is to screw up your characters build.

this is why prestidigitation is the best spell ever.